Speaker
Main supervisor (name and email)<br>and his / her institution
Prof. Peter Martinez, Peter.martinez@uct.ac.za, SpaceLab, Department of Electrical Engineering, University of Cape Town
Level for award<br> (Hons, MSc, <br> PhD, N/A)?
Msc
Apply to be<br> considered for a student <br> award (Yes / No)?
Yes
Would you like to <br> submit a short paper <br> for the Conference <br> Proceedings (Yes / No)?
Yes
Abstract content <br> (Max 300 words)<br><a href="http://events.saip.org.za/getFile.py/access?resId=0&materialId=0&confId=34" target="_blank">Formatting &<br>Special chars</a>
Sprites are the electrical discharge that occurs over an active thunderstorm in the mesosphere. Recent studies suggest that sprite initiation could affect the chemistry of the middle atmosphere or interfere with long-range distance communication through the lower ionosphere. Sprite research has been actively conducted in all other continents excluding Africa, which has been termed a “dark continent” due to the infrastructural limitation to contribute to this study. This paper describes the effort made by the South African National Space Agency to conduct middle atmospheric research in Africa, which led to the observation of approximately 100 sprites over southern Africa during the summer of 2015/16. This study also shows that sprites over southern Africa have the same morphology as those observed elsewhere and in most cases they occur in clusters. The methodology used for this campaign can be applied to the study of the Transient Luminous Events in other parts of Africa. Future plans are presented
Please indicate whether<br>this abstract may be<br>published online<br>(Yes / No)
Yes
