And let me record what I have noticed in my region of the country
regards lightning. Since moving here to South Dakota and living here
for 7 years now, every year has been less and less lightning. But that
is mostly due to the fact that every year seems to have less rainfall
than previous years.

So I would be interested in knowing whether the states that are
increasing in rainfall and the coastal regions where hurricanes occur,
have been increasing in lightning?

How would lightning affect volcanic frequency of eruptions? My guess is
that the energy involved in lightning discharges is enormous energy
that transforms into the movement of magma in the mantle and relates to
the direction of movement of plate tectonics. Most movement of plate
tectonics is near the equator and most volcanoes are near the equator.
Most lightning is near the equator.

So as the lightning bolt discharges into the ground it is transformed
into either kinetic energy of moving magma and plate tectonic movement
or is stored as potential energy of the magma that forms the Earth's
magnetic field.

Archimedes Plutonium
www.iw.net/~a_plutonium
whole entire Universe is just one big atom
where dots of the electron-dot-cloud are galaxies