A Retrospective of Findings From the FORTE Satellite Mission

Abstract

AbstractWe revisit the findings from the FORTE satellite program (1997–2004), which collected optical imaging of lightning as well as optical and radio frequency time series waveforms globally from low‐earth‐orbit. These include surveys of the earth's radio frequency anthropogenic noise environment; earth surface reflectivity at radio frequencies; a scheme for classifying lightning discharge types on the basis of their very high frequency time domain power envelope; insights into the polarization and radiation pattern characteristics of different lightning types, with implications for the underlying discharge processes; and estimates of cloud optical properties based on the statistics of scattered light. Most significantly, FORTE was uniquely suited to capture large samples of data from the rare discharge known as “narrow bipolar events,” enabling detailed examination of their basic characteristics and confirming that they appear to result from fundamentally distinct physical processes compared to other lightning. In particular, despite representing huge charge transfer they evidently produce little‐to‐no light output.