Remote Sensing of Electric Fields in Clouds

A proposed method for remote sensing of the electric field in a cloud that contains ice crystals would exploit the relationship between (1) the polarization-dependent radiometric or radar brightness of the cloud and (2) the average or bulk orientation of the crystals as affected by the electric field. The proposed method would complement other methods now used to measure natural electric fields in efforts to forecast lightning. A major advantage of the proposed method is that a few ground-based and/or airborne instruments could quickly survey a fairly large region of the sky.