Using lightning strikes to investigate the Earth’s ionosphere

The ionosphere is a region of charged particles, which encompasses the uppermost potions of the Earth’s atmosphere and affects telecommunications and space weather. Investigators have borrowed a geophysical technique often used for finding oil and gas deposits to gain an understanding of the ionosphere’s structure. Seismic waves propagate through the Earth’s crust, and these waves reflect off of subsurface structures before returning to sensors on the Earth’s surface. The data from these sensors are processed to create an image of the Earth’s interior. Analogously, investigators will measure lighting-derived radio waves that have been reflected back to the Earth to investigate the properties of the ionosphere. With roughly 50 lightning strikes occurring on Earth every second, they hope to create detailed images of the structure of the ionosphere as it changes over time and space – important information for understanding and forecasting disruptions to critical systems such as communications.