Air heating associated with transient luminous events

We discuss a relationship of thunderstorm related transient luminous events (TLEs) in the middle atmosphere to high-pressure lightning discharges at lower altitudes. The visual appearance of a subset of the recently observed TLEs near the thundercloud tops indicate that these events may be related to conventional lightning leader processes and therefore are associated with significant localized heating of the atmosphere. We report the most recent results from a model allowing investigation of effective time scales of air heating in streamer channels and scaling of this process as a function of air pressure.