The Atmospheric Electricity Research & Training (AERT) group at the University of Maryland employs tools developed by the science community to maximize the value of AE observations to society. A priority activity is the design and implementation of training material/programs to educate weather forecasters across the Americas on the use of space/ground-based lightning observations. Advancement of techniques to monitor the quality of data from the Geostationary Lightning Mapper (GLM) are ongoing.
The group manages the Mid-Atlantic Lightning Mapping Array (MALMA), a state-of-the-art VHF network used for research and operational product generation/validation. Explorative research is being conducted on the topics of multi-sensor data fusion, use of machine learning for enhanced data quality, data assimilation, and virtual reality data visualization. Resources provided by the Proving Ground and Training Center (PGTC) at the Cooperative Institute for Satellite Earth System Studies (CISESS) College Park facility enable synergy of AERT activities with broad atmospheric science research-to-operations activities in coordination with NOAA/NESDIS, NASA, and private vendors.
