Lightninig Induced Sferics Correlated with Whistler Propagation

Lightning discharges generate broadband electromagnetic pulses, known as sferics, that efficiently propagate through the Earth-ionosphere waveguide. Some sferic energy can escape the Earth-ionosphere waveguide and propagate in a whistler mode, enabled by Earth's magnetic field, through the ionosphere. In this presentation, we correlate lightning discharge location and time data from the National Lightning Detection Network (NLDN) in the United States with burst mode electric field measurements from the DEMETER spacecraft to quantify and model whistler propagation through the ionosphere. Using the International Reference Ionosphere (IRI) model for electron density and the International Geomagnetic Reference Field (IGRF) model for magnetic field, we compare measured propagation with the Full Wave Method (FWM) finite element numerical code developed by N. G. Lehtinen and U. S. Inan. While a few studies have analyzed whistler propagation through the ionosphere using spacecraft measurements, spacecraft data have yet to be compared with the FWM as we have done here.