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Comment on “Return stroke transmission line model for stroke speed near and equal that of light’ by R. Thottappillil, J. Schoene, and M. A. Uman
Author(s) -
Kordi B.,
Moini R.,
Rakov V. A.
Publication year - 2002
Publication title -
geophysical research letters
Language(s) - English
Resource type - Journals
SCImago Journal Rank - 2.007
H-Index - 273
eISSN - 1944-8007
pISSN - 0094-8276
DOI - 10.1029/2001gl014602
Subject(s) - stroke (engine) , lightning (connector) , transmission line , physics , electric field , speed of light (cellular automaton) , line (geometry) , channel (broadcasting) , acoustics , telecommunications , optics , geometry , mathematics , engineering , power (physics) , quantum mechanics , thermodynamics
Electric fields on the ground 500 m, 5 km, and 50 km from the lightning channel base computed using the transmission line (TL) and antenna theory (AT) return‐stroke models for a typical subsequent stroke current at the channel base and a return‐stroke speed equal to the speed of light (v = c) are compared. The AT model gives a total electric field peak that is about 10% lower than the field peak predicted by the TL model. Optical measurements of the return‐stroke speed within the bottom 100 m of the lightning channel are reviewed and found to be not supporting the assumption of v = c.