Analysis of lightning-ionosphere interaction using simultaneous records of source current and 380Â km distant electric field

We present a full-wave, finite-difference time-domain (FDTD) analysis of the electric field propagation including the effect of the ionospheric reflections. The FDTD simulation results are compared with the measured fields associated with upward flashes initiated from the Säntis Tower. It is found that the model reproduces reasonably well the measured waveforms and the times of arrival of the one-hop and two-hop skywaves relative to the groundwave.