Synonyms
Cloud flash; Ground flash
Definition
Lightning or lightning discharge. A series of transient and multiple electrical breakdown pulses producing high-current channels (Uman, 1987).
Lightning flash. A luminous manifestation accompanying a sudden electrical discharge which takes place from or inside a cloud or, less often, from high structures on the ground or from mountains (WMO, 2011).
Introduction
A lightning flash is a noncontinuous multi-scale physical process that ranges from the initial breakdown of air to the actual discharge propagation in discrete steps that can occur from cloud to ground (CG) or inside the clouds, i.e., intracloud (IC). In the case of CG lightning, the lightning channel formation is led by stepped leaders (that creates a conducting path between charge centers) and then followed by one or multiple return strokes that traverse the channel moving electric charges and neutralizing the leaders (Rakov and Uman, 2003). These series of return strokes are the...
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Albrecht, R.I., Cecil, D.J., Goodman, S.J. (2014). Lightning. In: Njoku, E.G. (eds) Encyclopedia of Remote Sensing. Encyclopedia of Earth Sciences Series. Springer, New York, NY. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-0-387-36699-9_86
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