Lightning Related Transient Luminous Events in the Middle Atmosphere

Abstract

Atmospheric electricity processes at low altitudes in the Earth's atmosphere produce lightning flashes that lead to plasma phenomena with measurable effects through the depth of the atmosphere and beyond. Many of these effects have been discovered during the past three decades and are still poorly understood. Lightning can create strong electromagnetic pulses and quasi-static electric fields inducing gas discharges in the upper atmosphere. The related plasma processes exhibit a bewildering variety of visual forms, which span the full range of altitudes between the tropopause and the ionosphere. For historical reasons, and to avoid inadvertently suggesting unwarranted physical properties before they were known, the luminous optical manifestations of these events are referred to variously as sprites, elves, or blue jets.  In this talk we will discuss some of the most recent research efforts directed on understanding of lightning related gas discharges of various forms and, in particular, on interpretation of observed features of these transient luminous events. We will also provide a brief overview of the history of discovery of different types of transient luminous events.

Bio. Victor Pasko is a Professor in the department of Electrical Engineering at Penn State University. He received his Ph.D. degree in electrical engineering from Stanford University in 1996. He joined department of Electrical Engineering at Penn State University as Associate Professor in 2000 after holding post-doctoral and research associate positions at Stanford University. Dr. Pasko received promotion to full professorship at Penn State in 2009. He served as a graduate program coordinator in the department of Electrical Engineering during 2011-2022 time-period. He is a Senior Member of IEEE. Dr. Pasko is a Fellow of the American Geophysical Union.  Dr. Pasko's research interests include atmospheric electrodynamics, atmospheric gravity waves, gas discharge phenomena, computational plasma physics and electromagnetics. He has published over hundred refereed journal papers https://orcid.org/0000-0003-2675-6837