Abstract
Every lightning discharge radiates brief, intense electromagnetic fields which may penetrate the lower ionosphere and couple to the whistler mode in the magnetosphere. As these circularly polarized waves traverse the magnetosphere they interact with gyrating trapped electrons, causing a percentage to be scattered and precipitated onto the upper atmosphere.

In this new formulation we consider the case of general whistler wave propagation in a smoothly-varying magnetosphere where the ray paths are not necessarily (Earth magnetic) field aligned, and where the wavenormal angle (k-vector) may take on any allowed value for the anisotropic media.

We present quantitative calculations of transient electron fluxes resulting from individual lightning flashes, and highlight a case where a single discharge can cause a precipitation flux of E>100 keV electrons exceeding 10 milli-ergs/cm^2/s for up to 1 second, deposited over a spatial region roughly 6 x 10 degrees centered some 14 degrees poleward of the source.