Matt Heavner, Los Alamos National Laboratory, heavner@lanl.gov
Victor Pasko, Stanford University, pasko@nova.stanford.edu
Mike Taylor, Utah State University, mtaylor@cc.usu.edu
NIST 1107, 4:00-6:00 PM
Thursday, June 29, 2000
This workshop will discuss various questions related to the physical nature and energetics of sprites and related optical phenomena formed as a result of strong electrodynamic coupling of tropospheric thunderstorms to the mesospheric and lower ionospheric regions.
Sprites are spectacular luminous glows which occupy volumes in excess of thousands of cubic kilometers in clear air above thunderstorms in the altitude range ~40-90 km. Sprites are morphologically complex phenomena often exhibiting an amorphous non structured glow at their tops, which gradually converts to highly (predominantly vertically) structured breakdown regions at lower altitudes. Sprites are transient in nature and last only a small fraction of a second following intensive positive or negative lightning discharges. It appears from the space shuttle observations that sprites occur over most regions of the globe (in temperate and tropical areas, over the oceans, and over the land). To date sprites have been successfully detected from ground and airborne platforms in North, Central and South America, in Europe, in Australia and over winter storms in Japan.
The subjects to be discussed include: