Abstract
Lightning discharge is a spectacular, luminous and one of the most dangerous short lived phenomenon which occurs in the Earth’s atmosphere ranging from troposphere to the lower ionosphere. Lightning in troposphere is mainly classified as cloud-to-ground (CG) lightning, intra-cloud lightning and inter-cloud lightning discharges. It is assumed that these discharges are caused by the electrically charged thunderclouds. CG lightning has been studied more and is further categorized as positive CG and negative CG lightning. Positive CG lightning is more powerful and accounts only (5-10) percent of the total global lightning and may carry a peak current of >300 kA. An entire family of other electrical discharges also has been reported by the scientific community. They are called “Transient’s Luminous Events (TLE’s)”. TLEs occur from top of the thunderclouds up to the lower ionospheric altitudes. Their first visual evidence was documented in 1989. TLE’s are included as blue starters, blue jets, gigantic jets, red sprites, halos, and elves. They are named according to their optical properties, terminal altitudes and different shapes. It has been observed that TLE’s are associated with underlying thunderstorm activity and strong CG lightning.
 The exact physical mechanism of lightning and TLE’s and their association with the underlying thunderstorms is still unknown and the research is going on. In this paper, we will study the possible mechanisms of these electrical discharges, their inter-connection and impacts on the atmosphere. This papers is aimed at the readers generally are unfamiliar with the lightning characteristics. We hope that this article will increase the interest among the researchers.
Highlights
Lightning is an electrical breakdown of air and perhaps this is the most spectacular, luminous and highly bright phenomena in the Earth‟s atmosphere
Gigantic jets transfers a large quantity of charge from thundercloud tops to the ionosphere and radiates in extremely low frequency
We suggest that it is needed to change the conventional picture of global electric circuit and the contribution of gigantic jets and possibly red sprites should be included
Summary
Lightning is an electrical breakdown of air and perhaps this is the most spectacular, luminous and highly bright phenomena in the Earth‟s atmosphere. There are so many other characteristics of lightning which are yet to be studied Another form of discharges called high altitude lightning or transient luminous events (TLEs) has been observed during more than two decades [12,13]. MacKenzie and Toynbee [14] reported for the first time visual observation of brief flash of light above thunderstorm but it was ignored due to the lack of sufficient evidences It was predicted earlier in 1925 by Charles Thomson Rees Wilson about these discharges that the electric field caused by low altitude lightning can cause ionization at great heights and could give rise to discharges between clouds and the upper atmosphere, but the direct visual evidence was documented in 1989. We will study the mechanism of tropospheric lightning especially CG lightning discharge and the association of thunderstorms with the upper atmosphere
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