Physics of the thunderstorm electric circuit

✍ Scribed by D.J. Malan

• Publisher: Elsevier Science
• Year: 1967
• Tongue: English
• Weight: 840 KB
• Volume: 283
• Category: Article
• ISSN: 0016-0032
• DOI: 10.1016/0016-0032(67)90599-6

✦ Synopsis

Review of Electrical Phenomena Inside and Around a Thundercloud

An electrically active thundercloud may be regarded as an electrostatic generator suspended in an atmosphere of low electrical conductivity. It is situated between two concentric conductors, namely, the surface of the earth and the electrosphere, the latter being the highly conducting layers of the atmosphere at altitudes above 50 to 60 kin.

Although a large horizontal expanse of cloud often has several individual generators or electrically active cells in different stages of development embedded in it, the discussions which follow will, for the sake of simplicity, be restricted to an isolated cloud containing a single generating cell.

It will be taken for granted that charges of opposite signs are being produced ELECTROSPHERE s.