Airborne GLM Simulator (FEGS)

Abstract:

Real time lightning observations have proven to be useful for advanced warning and now-casting of severe weather events. In anticipation of the launch of the Geostationary Lightning Mapper (GLM) onboard GOES-R that will provide continuous real time observations of total (both cloud and ground) lightning, the Fly’s Eye GLM Simulator (FEGS) is in production. FEGS is an airborne instrument designed to provide cal/val measurements for GLM from high altitude aircraft. It consists of a 5 x 5 array of telescopes each with a narrow passband filter to isolate the 777.4 nm neutral oxygen emission triplet radiated by lightning. The telescopes will measure the optical radiance emitted by lightning that is transmitted through the cloud top with a temporal resolution of 10 μs. When integrated on the NASA ER-2 aircraft, the FEGS array with its 90° field-of-view will observe a cloud top area nearly equal to a single GLM pixel. This design will allow FEGS to determine the temporal and spatial variation of light that contributes to a GLM event detection. In addition to the primary telescope array, the instrument includes 5 supplementary optical channels that observe alternate spectral emission features and will enable the use of FEGS for interesting lightning physics applications. Here we present an up-to-date summary of the project and a description of its scientific applications.