Question

State whether true or false: Lightning is caused due to discharge between similarly charged clouds.
(A) True
(B) False

Answer 1

Hint : Lightning discharges in the atmosphere is just a large-scale flow of charge between the clouds in the form of electric current. We will make use of the property of the flow of charge than opposite polarities of charge attract while the similar polarity of charges repels.

Complete step by step answer
Lighting originates when wind travelling upwards and downwards in the atmosphere creates a charging mechanism that separates electric charges in clouds – leaving negative charges at the bottom and positive charges at the top. This configuration can be thought of as a capacitor that has two opposite charged plates and a medium made up of clouds in between.
When an abundant amount of opposite charge is accumulated across the two ends of the cloud, a large potential is induced between the clouds. As a result, dielectric breakdown occurs, which means that the medium between the two ends of the cloud starts getting ionized due to the high potential difference between the two ends of the cloud and the charge gets a channel to flow towards the two ends of the clouds. We see this phenomenon of dielectric breakdown and the sudden flow of charge in the form of lightning.
So lightning discharges require clouds with opposite charges. Hence the statement is false.
Hence the correct answer is option B.

Note
Lightning discharges are of different types which are classified where the lightning bolt terminates. A lightning bolt can terminate on the cloud itself, on another cloud, or on the ground. In all three cases, the lightning flows between terminals having oppositely charged regions.