Lightning is highly destructive due to its high power density and unpredictable character. Directing lightning away would allow to protect sensitive sites from its direct and indirect impacts (electromagnetic perturbations). Up to now, lasers have been unable to guide lightning efficiently since they were not offering simultaneously terawatt peak powers and kHz repetition rates. In the framework of the Laser Lightning Rod project, we develop a laser system for lightning control, with J-range pulses of 1 ps duration at 1 kHz. The project aims at investigating its propagation in the multiple filamentation regime and its ability to control high-voltage discharges. In particular, a field campaign at the Säntis mountain will assess the laser ability to trigger upward lightning.

Far-field measurements of lightning-produced electromagnetic fields are of high importance for lightning location systems. Data from recorded lightning strokes can be, for example, used to assess the risk of lightning-induced damage in some geographical areas. Artificially triggered lightning, usually generated using rocket-wire technology, plays an important role in the study of lightning physics. Multiple-station observations of far (typically larger than 20 km) electric field waveforms produced by rocket-triggered lightning are quite rare. In 2014, electric field waveforms were measured for return strokes through the rocket-and-wire technique at Conghua. They were measured by electric field sensors at nine sites belonging to the lightning locating system in Foshan, Guangzhou, China. A total of 38 events were recorded and overall statistics of those waveforms are presented. The results were compared to previous experimental data related to natural and artificially triggered lightning to validate their similarity.

Interest in exploring the meteorological conditions favoring upward lightning from tall man‐made structures has grown in recent years, largely due to the worldwide expansion of wind energy. To this end, instrumented towers existing around the world are the most suitable places to study upward lightning. In this context, an LMA network was deployed around the Säntis Mountain (northeast Switzerland) during the summer of 2017, in order to complement the long‐term measurements currently held at the Säntis telecommunications tower, a lightning hot spot in central Europe. This campaign allowed, for the first time, to gather a comprehensive set of observations of self‐initiated upward lightning emerging from the Tower. With the help of C‐band dual‐polarimetric radar data, the present work focuses on the meteorological conditions conductive to self‐initiated upward lightning from the Säntis. The analysis revealed that the upward propagating positively charged leaders spread mostly horizontal above the melting level, after an initial short vertical path from the tower tip. After this initial stage, the majority of upward leaders were followed by a sequence of negative return strokes. The inception upward lightning under a stratiform cloud shield would be favored by the low height of the charge structure. From the obtained results, it turns out that a key feature favoring self‐initiated upward lightning would be the proximity of the tower tip to the melting level.

We present an analysis aimed at evaluating the effect of the presence of the tower on the measurement of the grounding impedance. The Numerical Electromagnetics Code NEC-4 is used for the full-wave modeling of the structure including the tower and its footing grounding system, as well as the experimental setup used for the measurement of the grounding impedance. First, the effect of possible path-dependence in the evaluation of the integral of the electric field is investigated. It is shown that, up to a frequency of about 100 kHz or so, the voltage, and consequently the evaluated impedance are independent of the path of integration. At higher frequencies, differences appear, which might be significant especially for poor conducting ground. The effect of the distance to the reference remote earth on the evaluated voltage is also analyzed and it is shown that a distance of 100 m to the remote earth is appropriate to evaluate the grounding impedance potential rise. The simulation results show that at low frequencies (up to about 200 kHz or so for the considered 140-m tall tower), the effect of the presence of the tower can be disregarded. At higher frequencies, the evaluated impedance is affected by the presence of the tower. The poorer the ground conductivity, the more significant the effect of the presence of the tower on the evaluated impedance. Two injected current waveforms, representative of typical first and subsequent return strokes, are considered for the time-domain analysis. The effect of the presence of the tower can be significant for subsequent return stroke excitation, which has a wider frequency spectrum compared to first return strokes. It is shown that in the early-time region, part of the injected current flows into the tower. For a ground conductivity of 0.001 S/m, the tower peak current increases to about 10% of the exciting current, for the case of a subsequent strokes. It is also shown that the presence of the tower would cause a decrease in the peak potential rise leading therefore to an underestimation of the so-called impulsive grounding impedance.