Preprint Outlines Simulation-Based Inference for Reconstructing Lightning Parameters from Orbital ELVES Observations

The method treats the ionospheric electromagnetic pulse interaction and detector response as explicit forward-model components rather than nuisance parameters. In generator mode the dynamic model produces synthetic expanding rings; in SBI mode it samples posterior distributions over discharge parameters given real photon-count time series. This directly targets the inverse problem that has limited earlier ground-based and single-event optical studies.

ELVES events span hundreds of kilometers at ~90 km altitude and encode source geometry at microsecond scales. Prior radio and optical campaigns captured either the expanding front or the parent discharge but rarely both with calibrated instrument response. The new framework therefore supplies the first end-to-end propagation from observed glow morphology to physically interpretable discharge metrics, with relevance for nowcasting lightning hazards and refining global electric-circuit models.

The work remains a methods paper on a single arXiv submission without reported validation on independent events or comparison to simultaneous radio networks. A decisive next step would be a blinded reconstruction test against a catalog of discharges whose parameters are known from multi-station lightning mapping arrays, with explicit reporting of posterior calibration and coverage.

If successful, the approach could integrate with upcoming missions that carry wide-field microsecond imagers, yielding routine remote sensing of thunderstorm electrical structure over oceans and remote land areas where ground networks are sparse.