Lightning in a Flash: A Cloud-Based, Open-Source Capability to Support Data Access and Analysis of Space-Based Lightning Observations

Lightning observations are some of the most popular datasets available at the Global Hydrometeorology Resource Center (GHRC) Distributed Active Archive Center (DAAC), a collaborative effort between NASA’s Marshall Space Flight Center and the University of Alabama in Huntsville. Specifically, GHRC DAAC hosts several space-based lightning datasets including the Optical Transient Detector (OTD), the Lightning Imaging Sensor (LIS) from the Tropical Rainfall Measuring Mission and the International Space Station, as well as gridded level 3 data from the Geostationary Lightning Mapper. These are supported by a variety of ground- and airborne-based instruments.

Although popular and highly influential in numerous lightning research efforts, these data can be difficult to manipulate and visualize. GHRC DAAC does offer a few data recipes to supper the user community, but these primarily focus on basic visualizations and how to manipulate the data files. As part of GHRC’s, and the wider DAAC community’s, goal to be more than data curators, GHRC received seed funding to create a minimum viable product last year. The purpose was to create a cloud-based resource with basic visualization and analysis capabilities. The culmination of this effort is the Lightning Dashboard.

The Lightning Dashboard is meant to improve the accessibility of these lightning data by creating a capability that requires no software downloads, allows comparisons between different lightning datasets, and enables users access to supporting documentation and the data for download. This presentation will highlight these capabilities as well as recent updates. This includes the integration of the an improved user interface and capabilities previously developed by the lightning community and brought in to the Lightning Dashboard.