SOME STUDIES ON LIGHTNING

Abstract

Lightning is a transient, high current electric discharge. It may occur between two opposidharge centres of a single cloud, between one charge centre of one cloud and opposiV„charge centre of another cloud or between lower charge centre of a cloud and the ground. They are known as intracloud, intercloud and cloud to ground discharges respectively. Most of the experi-mental as well as theoretical works on lightning concern mainly to the cloud to ground discharges. This type of discharges are known to be most intense and hence most important from the study point of view. However, it is difficult to make experimental observations of other two types of discharges because of the cloud obscurity. The present study pertains mainly to the ground discharges with some emphasis also in intracloud discharges. The content. of the thesis is given pointwise as follows: (1) The mechanism of rapid lightning discharges: the charge generation mechanism which provides sufficient charge in a thunder cloud in a very short duration for the subsequent lightning flashes to occur.