Time derivative of the electric field 10, 14, and 30 m from triggered lightning strokes

Abstract

We have directly measured the time derivative of the electric field of triggered lightning strokes at distances of 10, 14, and 30 m. The data were taken in 1998 at the International Center for Lightning Research and Testing at Camp Blanding, Florida. We compare our results with those of similar triggered lightning measurements made previously at the Kennedy Space Center at distances of 50 m and 5 km and in France at 50 m. We also compare our electric field derivative waveforms with previous measurements at the Kennedy Space Center of natural lightning strokes over the Atlantic Ocean at distances of the order of tens of kilometers and with overland natural lightning data obtained at 0.7 to 14 km in Germany. Our return stroke electric field derivative peak values normalized (assuming the inverse distance dependence valid for radiation fields) to 100 km are similar to all previous measurements for both natural and triggered lightning at distances from 50 m to about 50 km, all being several tens of volts per meter per microsecond, with the exception of the German overland peak derivative values which are an order of magnitude lower. Our 10‐ to 30‐m field derivative zero‐to‐peak risetimes are typically 50 to 100 ns (minimum of 30 ns and maximum of 180 ns), and widths at half‐peak value are typically 100 to 200 ns. There is essentially no difference between our electric field derivative waveshapes measured simultaneously at 10 m and at 30 m, with the closer waveform being about a factor of 2 greater in amplitude. Fourier analysis of our electric field derivative waveforms indicates that the primary frequency content of the waveforms is below about 20 MHz. Our close return stroke field derivative waveforms differ from those of Leteinturier et al. (1990) recorded 50 m from triggered lightning at the Kennedy Space Center in 1985 in that their derivative waveforms typically decrease rapidly after the peak and exhibit zero crossings and in that their waveforms tend to have multiple peaks, while our derivative waveforms are generally single peaked and decay more gradually to zero after the peak, with no zero crossings. We argue that the differences between their waveforms and ours are related to the relatively large rocket‐launching structure used at the Kennedy Space Center in 1985.