4 ms·
Interesting (to me) that the flash shown on the included diagram has positive and negative branches. That suggests to me that while it is one "flash", it is act
by kitd 1y ago
Interesting (to me) that the flash shown on the included diagram has positive and negative branches. That suggests to me that while it is one "flash", it is actually multiple discharges, one triggering others in a chain-reaction-like process. Anyone know how these things work?
- __MatrixMan__ 1y agoThe simplest possible lightning bolt would be a straight line with a positive side and a negative side, no? If so, isn't that a single discharge? Certainly what you're describing happens. You see the effect in the spark gaps of a Marx generator: one discharge triggers the next. I'm just saying that it's not necessarily the case that multiple differently charged branches mean spatially disconnected bolts. The path of least resistance is going to be through a nearby bolt of lightning, supposing one exists (plasma being a good conductor) so I'd expect they have a tendency to merge, so you get a network of sources and sinks. Probably as new nodes join the network what was once a source could become a sink--the channel being open for further equalization with new distant point. Whether to count that as one thing or many, idk.
- deleted 1y ago[deleted]
- zimpenfish 1y ago> it is actually multiple discharges This might be the relevant sentence from the paper (but I'm not a weather scientist) "Events were only used in the standard GLM clustering model to delineate flashes according to spatiotemporal proximity (events within 330 ms and 16.5 km of each other form the same flash)."