Tokyo's "Skytree" Tops World in Catching Thunderbolts

The Tokyo Skytree rises 2080 ft high overlooking the entire Kanto Plain. It's Tokyo's top tourist attraction and Asia's second tallest structure after the Burf Khalifa (2772 ft).

Now the structure attracts today not only tourists but a bunch of serious scientists in the areas of thunderbolt, lightning, and meteorology in general. In fact, the world is watching for data currently compiled at the observatory installed 1640 ft high.

The tower's central pillar is surrounded by 30-meter plastic pipes with copper coils inside to catch every thunderbolt that hits the tower. As a thunderbolt hits the tower, electricity travels through the steel frame into the ground, and as it does electromagnetic induction leaves power inside the coil that transmits itself through the optical fiber to the computer down below at 1148 ft.

The Tobu Tower Skytree is joined by Tokyo University and Denchuken (Central Research Institute of Electric Power Industry) to collect and analyze sequential visual data under given meteorological conditions.

The thunderbolt research project at the SKytree is significant most of all because of the overall volume of data complied for analysis. Thunders fall on the protruding tips of tall structures. The Tokyo Tower, about half as tall, is hit about once or twice a year, whereas the Skytree has drawn as often as 60 times since the project started 4 years ago - the number unprecedented in the world.

 Data on thunderbolts are rarely compiled in this manner. The Skytree is definitely contributing with its height to the study of thunderbolt.

Experts agree that the project at the Skytree benefits relevant studies on how to minimize the damages of thunderbolts. City areas have more skyscrapers vulnerable to thunderbolts - phenomenon called indirect stroke.

Masaaki Sato of the thunderbolt specialist Sankosha Co. comments:

"Damages of indirect stroke are on the rise. Electrical equipment, computers and other office machines are all vulnerable. We are all out to introduce means to minimize damages."

So, the Skytree is not just a tall tower overlooking the whole of Kanto Plain. Good show, Skytree. (Nathan Shiga)