Preliminary detection efficiency and false alarm rate assessment of the Geostationary Lightning Mapper on the GOES-16 satellite

Abstract

The Geostationary Lightning Mapper (GLM) is a new geostationary lightning detection and location instrument, developed for the current generation of Geostationary Operational Environmental Satellite-R Series (GOES-R, S, T, U) satellites. Detection efficiency (DE) and false alarm rate (FAR) are evaluations of what an instrument detects and what it misses, compared with other well-characterized measurements. These are critical parameters to be assessed for the GLM. We now have enough data to produce preliminary DE and FAR assessments of the prelaunch predicted DE and FAR performance specifications for GLM. However, one of the challenges of doing this assessment is that all available ground truth data sets have much smaller coverage, and in some places, lower DE than GLM. In an attempt to overcome these limitations, we have created a “virtual” lightning network by clustering flashes from several different ground-based networks, using a technique similar to the clustering of GLM pixels. All ground truth sources that are within 330 ms and 16.5 km of any other ground truth source are added to the current cluster. Treating this as a single, “virtual” network, we calculated the relative DE and FAR of GLM. We found that the GLM easily meets the DE spec of better than 70% averaged across the whole field-of-view, over 24 h. It meets the FAR spec in most of CONUS, and we suspect it will improve with updated processing software.