The catalog of the thunderstorm ground enhancement events registered on Mt. Aragats

D.Aslanyan, Yerevan Physics Institute, Cosmic Ray Division, Yerevan, Armenia

The new phenomena in atmospheric physics are the high-energy processes culminating in huge fluxes of electrons and gamma rays incident on the earth’s surface. We have continuously monitored elementary particle fluxes on the Mt. Aragats high-altitude research station of the Cosmic Ray Division of A. Alikhanyan National Laboratory discovered a powerful electron accelerator in the thunderclouds. To reach a complete understanding of high-energy processes in the terrestrial atmosphere and to find new and easily measured indicators of the global change in the climate system, we form a database of these rather rare events. Throughout the years 2009-2022, we have registered nearly 500 Thunderstorm Ground enhancement events (TGEs). We recover energy spectra of TGE electrons and gamma rays, calculate the significances of peaks relative to fair-weather values, measure geomagnetic and near-surface electric fields, distances to lightning flashes, and register atmospheric discharges. As well we monitor skies above the research station on Mt. Aragats by panoramic cameras. As a result of the measurements, a database was created containing data from continuous observations of fluxes of neutral and charged particles together with data on disturbances of the near-surface electric field measured by a network of BOLTEK’s EFM-100 electric field mills and meteorological conditions from automatic weather stations from DAVIS Instruments. Now we form an EXCEL catalog of 237 TGE events observed in 2013-2022 containing 11 parameters including the peak intensity of TGE as registered by detectors with 0.7 MeV, 3 MeV, 7 MeV energy thresholds, temperature, and dew point during the TGE and atmospheric electric field parameters. From the catalog one can directly access the data analysis ADEI platform with its rich possibilities of multivariate visualizations and statistical tools for the multivariate correlation analysis of particle fluxes, lightning flashes, and numerous environmental parameters.

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