The first results of the new tool available for weather forecasting were presented by the European meteorological agency Eumetsat: they are exceptional images and videos of lightning strikes over Europe and Africa.
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The important new instrument for imaging lightning from space, with impressive accuracy, is 36,000 kilometers from Earth, in a practically geostationary position. It is the Lighting imager, translated into Italian in a somewhat strange but significant way as “lightning meter”, built by Leonardo in the Campi Bisenzio plant and mounted on the third generation Meteosat satellites of the Space Agency
European Union, ESA, and Eumetsat, created by Thales Alenia Space, a joint venture 67% Thales, 33% Leonardo. A good bit of Italy therefore in this innovative instrumentation.
What this instrument does, aboard the Meteosat -12 launched last December, is to notice and record all the lightning strikes in the field of view, remarkable given that it is equipped with 4 telescopes. From the ground we already have very good lightning counting and analysis projects, which are very important indicators for meteorologists especially for seeing and predicting extreme events, but from space we can have a much more panoramic vision, in fact the Lighting Imager covers up to to 80% of the globe, thus becoming a fundamental tool for meteorologists. Furthermore, existing ground-based detection systems in Europe are also very efficient, they detect the electric discharge of lightning from the simultaneous radiofrequency emission, but only analyze lightning from cloud to ground and not from cloud to cloud. Also for this reason, the most important European centers for weather analysis and forecasting are enthusiastic and hope to be able to start using the data from the lightning meter after the definitive calibration period, from the beginning of 2024.
What is at stake, with the third generation Meteosat satellites now also equipped with this powerful tool, is to become a leader in so-called nowcasting, forecasts in practically real time, a few hours in advance, and the lightning detector will play a decisive role.
As Eumetsat Director General Phil Evans pointed out at the press conference presenting the first data obtained from the instrument, “Large storms are often preceded by a sudden change in the number of lightning strikes in a certain area. By observing the change in activity the Lighting imager will give meteorologists forecasting a means to more confidently produce extreme events. And this is certainly very important. Furthermore, from space we can also observe lightning in the African continent, little or nothing covered by terrestrial systems, and those that occur over the oceans, important for ships.
The instrument has four telescopes that continuously observe Europe, Africa, the Middle East and parts of South America and each telescope can record up to 1000 images per second. From a single lightning strike to a swarm of dozens of events, the instrument records everything accurately, day and night. “There
“The minimum duration of lightning that we can detect is 0.6 milliseconds, which means 1,000 times faster than the blink of an eye,” Guia Pastorini said of Leonardo,
The system is able to understand if what it sees is really lightning or something else, for example a reflected glow which can be very similar. This obstacle, explains Leonardo, was overcome thanks to a complex system of filters that obscure only the surrounding light and instead recognize that of lightning, together with on-board electronics capable of calibrating the brightness of the shots and ”self-regulating ” into
based on the observed scenario.
The large amount of data acquired by the instrument, 48 Gigabytes per second, thanks to ad hoc developed algorithms and local calculation capabilities of the instrument are analyzed and reduced by 1000 times, up to 30 Megabytes per second, drastically reducing ground transmission .
A total of four Lighting Imagers will be mounted on board the Meteosat satellites in the coming years.
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