Have you ever noticed that not all lightning strikes the ground? About 10% of lightning actually originates on earth and discharges into a cloud – these are ascending lightning of the "earth-cloud" type. Sometimes, it is an extremely beautiful, unusual sight.
Since the rising lightning strikes from the ground, it is as bright and saturated as possible at the bottom, and branches and goes out towards the top. Most often, rising lightning from the ground is formed at different elevations: on the tops of mountains, hills or on the peaks of towers. In Russia, for example, one of the places of frequent observation of rising lightning is the Ostankino TV Tower – 90% of lightning strikes into it are of the ascending type, that is, it turns out that this Ostankino Tower throws lightning.
Interestingly, with ordinary lightning of the «cloud-cloud» or «cloud-earth» type, we do not know everything and understand it. Yes, in a thundercloud, under the influence of ascending air currents, the electrification of dust particles, ice floes, droplets occurs. As a result, zones with high and low charges are formed in the cloud, between which a high–intensity electric field arises - excellent conditions for the occurrence of cloud-to-cloud lightning.
The earth is usually a zone with a low charge potential, which is additionally polarized by the cloud and therefore there is another zone of tension between the bottom of the cloud and the earth, giving rise to cloud-earth lightning. And then how does the rising lightning from the earth into the cloud arise?
The fact is that the charge in the ground is also unevenly distributed and the most superficial, soil layer can accumulate a significant static charge, which, when a thundercloud appears, finds where to discharge it. But where does this charge come from? Here, official science does not yet give clear answers.
There is an answer to this question, of course, but for this you need to look into the bowels of the Earth, where the real kitchen of the weather and climate is located, and where not very good processes are currently taking place, releasing a lot of energy: These are vibrations of the inner core, cavitation effects, deep-focus nuclear explosions, and other radiation. All this releases excess energy, which gives rise to the heating of the planet, the growth of earthquakes and, among other things, the increased formation of charged particles coming out in certain areas. This electrostatic charge is distributed in the uppermost layer of the earth – in the soil layer and concentrated where there are elevations or towers. On the plains, ascending lightning is observed less frequently and they are weaker.
Thus, a thundercloud creates the necessary conditions for the occurrence and passage of lightning. And the direction depends on where enough charge has accumulated to start the lightning. And here we touch on another big question for science – how exactly the primary discharge occurs, because the voltage in the cloud, although large, is not enough for the primary breakdown of air ... and when a thunderstorm accumulates sufficient potential, even rarer types of lightning can occur in higher layers of the atmosphere: sprites, jets, blue jets which are still poorly understood... but read about this and other interesting facts in our next articles.
In the northern hemisphere and in particular on the territory of Russia, ascending lightning is quite rare. But in the southern hemisphere, especially in zones of tectonic faults, volcanic activity – lightning strikes from the ground more often.
