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https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S1364682600001127
The global atmospheric electric circuit, solar activity and climate change
Author links open overlay panelM.JRycroftaCPricec
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https://doi.org/10.1016/S1364-6826(00)00112-7
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Abstract
The study of the global atmospheric electric circuit has advanced dramatically in the past 50 years. Large advances have been made in the areas of lightning and thunderstorm research, as related to the global circuit. We now have satellites looking down on the Earth continuously, supplying information on the temporal and spatial variability of lightning and thunderstorms. Thunderstorms are electric current generators, which drive electric currents up through the conducting atmosphere. They maintain the ionosphere at a potential of ∼+250 kV with respect to the Earth's surface. The global electric circuit is completed by currents flowing through the fair weather atmosphere, remote from thunderstorms, and by transient currents due to negative cloud-to-ground lightning discharges. The time constant of the circuit, , demonstrates that thunderstorms must occur continually to maintain the fair weather electric field. New discoveries have been made in the field of sprites, elves and blue jets, which may have a direct impact on the global circuit. Our knowledge of the global electric circuit modulated by solar effects has improved. Changes to the global circuit are associated with changes of conductivity linked with the time-varying presence of energetic charged particles, and the solar wind may influence the global electric circuit by inferred effects on cloud microphysics, temperature, and dynamics in the troposphere. We now have a better understanding of how the conductivity of the atmosphere is influenced by aerosols, and how this impacts our measurements of the fair-weather global circuit.
The global atmospheric electric circuit is also beginning to be recognised by some climate researchers as a useful tool with which to study and monitor the Earth's changing climate.
Yes certainly and there are very much more accurate reasons for that employment.I wonder how long it will take for elementry students to be introduced to the electrical world. Dexter Sinister craped all over the science and me for years while the transition was taking place. I,m convinced that nothing in this universe can be fully explained without the electrical base.
http://Charge Exchange Stephen Smith March 28, 2018 picture of the day Earthâs global electric circuit. Credit: Rycroft et al. (2000). Click to enlarge.
www.thunderbolts.info/wp/2018/03/28/charge-exchange/
Mar 28, 2018 Earth and the Sun share an electric circuit.
“Everybody talks about the weather, but nobody does anything about it.”
— Charles Dudley Warner
The Magnetospheric Multiscale satellites were
launched March 12, 2015 on a mission to study Earth’s electromagnetic fields. The MMS constellation, as well as the Geospace Electrodynamic Connections mission and the Magnetospheric Constellation mission, are part of a widespread, international consortium known as the Global Electric Circuit Project.
MMS, along with
TIMED, Cluster, ARTEMIS, and other satellites, is analyzing the Sun’s influence on Earth’s thermosphere, about 100 kilometers in altitude. The solar wind of charged particles first interacts with atmospheric particles in the thermosphere. However, that region is not well understood, especially since TIMED detected a tenfold decline in the thermosphere’s temperature since 2002.
Temperatures in the thermosphere are the result of solar radiation. Atmospheric oxygen becomes ionized when it absorbs ultraviolet light, so it is electrically charged. That energy increases molecular motion, otherwise known as “heat”. Although a mercury thermometer would register temperatures below zero in the thermosphere, it can be over 1500 Celsius during solar maximum.
As written previously, there is an electric potential between the ground and the ionosphere, creating what is called the “fair weather field”, which generates two picoamps per each square meter of ground. Using the formula, Q = 4π R2 εo E = R2 Eo / k, when εo = permittivity of free space (8.85 x 10-12 F/m), it can be shown that Earth is negatively charged with almost 500,000 Coulomb.
Earth is part of a circuit in the Solar System, so the 22 year solar cycle influences Earth’s environment. Although solar energy varies over time, corresponding with sunspot cycles, it amounts to less than one-tenth of one percent. Electricity from space is injected into the thermosphere along massive
Birkeland currents. Electric charge flow declines in amperage when the solar wind is at a minimum, which, in turn, decreases the strength of Earth’s magnetosphere. As it declines in strength, it is less able to deflect cosmic rays. Since cosmic rays are charge carriers, collisions between charged and neutral particles drag air molecules along with them, influencing low level cloud cover. More clouds reflect more radiation from the Sun back to space—clouds are white because they are acting like mirrors to all forms of visible light. More reflection means less solar energy, more cloud cover, and so on.
The Sun is returning to a more passive state, otherwise called, “solar minimum”. Changes in the correspondence between electric field strength, cosmic rays, Earth’s magnetosphere, cloud cover, and climate are continuing to be investigated. The Sun’s influence on Earth’s overall climate, as well as short term weather events, can no longer be ignored.
Stephen Smith