Airborne Lightning Observatory for FEGS and TGFs

The Campaign

The Airborne Lightning Observatory for FEGS and TGFs (ALOFT) was a field campaign conducted by NASA and the University of Bergen. Its primary goals were to observe terrestrial gamma-ray flashes (TGFs) and gamma-ray glows in thunderstorms and to help validate observations from the International Space Station Lightning Imaging Sensor (ISS LIS) and the Geostationary Lightning Mapper (GLM). ALOFT included a single deployment in July 2023 across Florida, Central America, the Gulf of Mexico, and the Caribbean Sea. The NASA ER-2 aircraft was equipped with multiple sensors, such as the Fly’s GLM Simulator (FEGS), Lightning Instrument Package (LIP), Electric Field Change Meter (EFCM), In Situ Thunderstorm Observer for Radiation Mechanisms (iSTORM), and University of Bergen-Bismuth-Germanium-Oxide (UIB-BGO), to gather measurements of lightning and radiation within thunderstorms. ALOFT was funded through NASA’s Weather and Atmospheric Dynamics program.

Additional Notes

Repositories

• Unpublished