How Does Lightning Transfer Between a Tree and a Person?

[Falcons]

I started working on some homework loosely based on circuit analysis and ran into a problem with lightning and trees and stuff. The question deals with lightning striking a tree and then "jumping" from the tree to a person standing nearby. It is a given that the person's resistance is negligible resistance compared to the air. Could someone help me with some constants?
A)Resistance of air
B)Resistance of Earth
I was going to try to create a loop and use one of Kirchoff's laws to find the current running through the person and was also wondering if this is an acceptable way to solve the problem.
Thanks!

 

[gomunkul51]

Earth will probably be the "ground". where does your current loop running through?
what do you mean by resistance of air? may be resistivity? but it won't get you anywhere because resistance is inversely proportional to area...

 

[willem2]

The resistance of air is extremely high. If it wasn't all the charge would just leak away and you'd never get lightning. Lightning happens when the field becomes strong enough to accelerate electrons to speeds where they can collide with air molecules and liberate more electrons. Once this happens the resistance can become very low.

 

[gomunkul51]

Reminds me a quote by Albert Einstein:

“Make things as simple as possible, but not simpler"