12-15 July 2011
Saint George Hotel
Africa/Johannesburg timezone

Testing the Cosmic Ray-Lightning Connection Hypothesis

14 Jul 2011, 17:00
2h
Asteria

Asteria

Poster Presentation Track D2 - Space Science Poster2

Speaker

Andrew Collier (University of KwaZulu-Natal)

Description

The proposed dependence of atmospheric electrical properties on the ionizing influence of cosmic rays has resulted in numerous attempts to obtain convincing correlations. While most of the studies remain largely theoretical, a few results (e.g. Stozhkov, 2003) indicate that there is a plausible link between lightning activity and the cosmic ray ionization rate measured at specific locations on Earth. The present work uses data from the World Wide Lightning Location Network (WWLLN) to investigate the impact of cosmic rays on lightning on a global scale. The availability of global lightning data from WWLLN, and assimilated cosmic ray data from a global network of neutron monitors provides a good opportunity to study the relationship between cosmic ray variations and lightning occurrence on a larger spatial scale than was previously possible.

Level (Hons, MSc, <br> &nbsp; PhD, other)? PhD
Consider for a student <br> &nbsp; award (Yes / No)? Yes
Would you like to <br> submit a short paper <br> for the Conference <br> Proceedings (Yes / No)? Yes

Primary author

Mr Ogbonnaya Okike (University of KwaZulu-Natal)

Co-author

Andrew Collier (University of KwaZulu-Natal)

Presentation Materials

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