The creation of a statistical lightning model

Lightning induced whistler waves are one of the primary causes of energetic electron loss from the Earth´s radiation belts. This is mainly due to pitch angle scattering by whistler mode waves, leading to precipitation. The detailed spatial and temporal influence of lightning on precipitation losses is, however, not well known. WWLLN gives continuous global lightning coverage with good time resolution. Since the detection efficiency of WWLLN is relatively low, it was compared to LIS/OTD data. However, whereas WWLLN records strokes, LIS/OTD record flashes. Therefore the flash multiplicity has to be taken into account. Finally the WWLLN data is transformed to geomagnetic (MAG) coordinates.