Atmospheric Electricians

About Dr. Sonnenfeld:

Dr. Richard Sonnenfeld, Physics Professor at New Mexico Tech, will be the guest after-dinner speaker at the Banquet on Saturday evening, September 21, 2024 at the Crowne Plaza Hotel. Dr. Sonnenfeld spent 15 years in Silicon Valley working on magnetic recording and joined New Mexico Tech 22 years ago to study lightning.

In 2020, he was a awarded a Fulbright fellowship to study lightning effects on energy systems in Western Australia. Since 2021 he has been the Director of the Langmuir Laboratory for Atmospheric Research near Socorro, New Mexico. The Langmuir Laboratory recently celebrated its 60th anniversary and its faculty and staff have contributed a number of technologies such as “field mills”, “lightning mapping arrays” and rocket triggering that have advanced scientific understanding of this complex phenomenon. Dr. Sonnenfeld’s current focus is lightning interferometry.

Abstract:

From the NMT Webpage on Atmospheric Physics Research, “Atmospheric electricians” study all of the electrical phenomena in the atmosphere. There is lightning from cloud to ground or within clouds, as well as red sprites, blue jets and elves, all electromagnetic phenomena in the upper stratosphere and ionosphere. All of these phenomena leave electromagnetic signatures. Lightning alone creates large changes in electric fields, magnetic fields and electromagnetic radiation (radio waves) at a variety of frequencies. Lightning also produces light and heat, and it seems also to produce X-rays and gamma rays. Each one of these signatures can be captured, often with custom instrumentation, to provide insight into the “high pressure plasma physics” of (very) long sparks. For all Amateur Radio Operators, this should be a very interesting and informative talk.

Last updated 8/9/2024