Development of a holistic physical model for lightning is a grand challenge that relies on linking meteorological, chemical, plasma, optical, and radio process models together into a system that can handle physics on scales from millimeters to hundreds of kilometers.
Gathering and sustaining a community is needed to act as a steward of a roadmap that guides development of the model. Periodic review of the roadmap through workshops and gatherings at professional meetings will document the state of the science, enumerate deficiencies and paths forward for improving current models, and define a strategy for linking together modular model components into an end-to-end system.
As a result of the first workshop in 2024, the first version of the roadmap was developed. It outlines 5 years of effort and a technical plan that sets the course for improvements. The model and its sub-components will be open, developed in public for the community.
1800-1900 local time, Wednesday 11 December, 2024
Washington, DC — Convention Center 202B
After a brief presentation introducing the roadmap, this Town Hall will serve as a public forum for soliciting community input.
Tue 14 January 2025, 1630–1800
New Orleans, LA – Convention Center 210
After a brief presentation introducing the roadmap, this Panel Discussion will serve as a public forum for soliciting community input.
1-3 April 2025, Lubbock, TX
Hosted by Texas Tech University
Preregistration: Interested in attending? Add yourself to the workshop mailing list and help us with planning by filling out the preregistration form.
The purpose of the 2025 hybrid workshop is to (1) provide a venue to foster community discussion of the roadmap; (2) coordinate the efforts of the lightning physics and meteorology community to review scientific hurdles to progress and discuss solutions, updating the roadmap document; (3) work together in a focused way on pragmatic implementation plans and identification of resources needed to engineer a concrete, interconnected lightning model.
The 2025 agenda will follow a similar format to the 2024 workshop, but welcoming a much larger audience, including students. Again, there will be a limited number of invited talks reviewing key components of the draft modeling framework, followed by extensive, open breakout discussions of the model components. Because of the focus on breakout discussions, you will not need to make a formal presentation at this meeting unless invited to do so.
12:30 pm 1 April — 12:00 pm 3 April 2024, Albuquerque NM
Hosted by Sandia National Lab at the Marriott Uptown in Albuquerque, NM
The schedule, presentations, and summary reports from the 2024 workshop are available on the archived workshop webpage.