CAMEX-4 Aircraft Measurements of Electric Fields and Air Conductivity

Lightning Instrument Package (LIP) data provides vector electric field components (Ex, Ey, Ez) and air conductivity measurements from the DC-8 aircraft during the CAMEX-4 campaign. The dataset captures a wide dynamic range of electric fields, from fair weather to thunderstorm conditions, enabling identification of total lightning events. It was collected by NASA to improve understanding of storm electrical structure.

Use Cases

• Analyzing the 3D electrical structure of storms using vector electric field components (Ex, Ey, Ez).
• Identifying total lightning events (cloud-to-ground and intracloud) from abrupt electric field changes.
• Deriving storm electric currents by combining electric field and air conductivity measurements.
• Studying atmospheric conductivity variations at aircraft flight altitude.

Strengths

• Provides vector electric field measurements, improving spatial analysis of storm structure.
• Covers a wide dynamic measurement range from a few V/m to tens of kV/m.

Limitations

• Key metadata such as row count, file size, and specific column names are unavailable.
• Conflicting last update dates exist between sources (2001-09-24 on NASA Earthdata vs. 2026-03 13 on Data.gov).

Provenance

Source

National Aeronautics and Space Administration

Collection Method

Collected by the ER-2 Lightning Instrument Package (LIP) aboard the DC-8 aircraft during the CAMEX-4 campaign.

Time Range

CAMEX-4 campaign period (specific dates unknown).

Freshness

2026-03-13 07:06:02.222324

Geography

Areas overflown by the DC-8 aircraft during the CAMEX-4 campaign.