Current, temperature, pressure, and radius for triggered lightning

Artificially triggered lightning can generate a cylindrical plasma when a rocket carrying metal wire is launched into cloud. Based on the mass-energy conservation and transmission-line equation, the cylindrical plasma was numerically simulated for its parameters: current, temperature, pressure, and radius. To verify the simulated results, the strong discharge plasma for triggered lightning in Guangdong, China, was adopted. Its experimentally measured data on the current, temperature, pressure, and radius were compared with the numerical simulations. The results show that: when the experimental measurement data focus on currents by 12–24 kA, electron temperature by 24 537 K, electron density by 4.96 ×1018 cm−3, pressure by 12 atm, and radius by 15.3–25 mm, interestingly, the numerically simulated results can obtain good agreements.