Electric Tornadoes - a complete theory at last!

[CharlesChandler]

Many people have believed for a long time that tornadoes are electromagnetic. The question is: HOW?

The first-blush answer, that tornadoes are slow, sustained electrostatic discharges between the ground and the cloud, asks more questions than it answers. There isn't enough electrostatic potential under a supercell thunderstorm to cause something as energetic as a tornado, and even if there was, a sustained electrostatic discharge would not act like a tornado.

Nevertheless, there is quite an abundance of obvious evidence that powerful electromagnetic forces are at work in tornadoes. So we are left with the original question: HOW?

A detailed analysis of a wide variety of the properties of supercell thunderstorms and tornadoes, and a thorough review of the combinatorial complexity of all of the physical forces involved, has yielded a new theory. Thermodynamics cannot explain tornadoes, and neither can electromagnetism, all by itself. But a combination of the two CAN. When ALL of the factors are taken into account, it becomes possible to understand how supercell thunderstorms and tornadoes are fundamentally thermodynamic, but that the thermodynamic fluxes are being modulated by some other force. And that "other force" can only be electromagnetism. If the expected properties of electrostatic and electrodynamic forces are added to the existing thermodynamic foundation, the phenomena become understandable. The mistake that we have been making was in thinking that these phenomena were thermodynamic OR electromagnetic. Scientific research sometimes favors the isolation of individual factors, but Mother Nature doesn't work like that, and explaining the behaviors of a complex, non-linear system such as a thunderstorm requires that we take everything into account before we begin. This approach made it possible to see interactions among forces that have not been previously identified.

The theory is being presented in an online book, and can be found here:

http://charles-chandler.org/Geophysics/Tornadoes.php

The text-only version is about 80 pages, including 15 pages of references. So while it's a small book, it's still more than just an article. And while it shouldn't have been necessary to chew up so much space to expose a simple theory, it was necessary to show how that theory could explain the full range of behaviors of supercell thunderstorms and tornadoes. So if you're interested in meteorology and electromagnetism, wait for the next cold, rainy weekend, and curl up with a good revolutionary theory of tornadoes. Just make sure to jot down your comments, questions, and criticisms. Eventually, this work will go to press, and it will be easier to make improvements before that happens, rather than after.

Quick comments and criticisms can be posted back to this thread. If anybody cares to do a review, positive or negative, I'll be happy to append it to the work. Just send it to me in a PM, and be sure to mention your real name. (I'm not going to append any reviews by anybody with a name like "Dark Lord" or "Game Boy". )

Best regards to all,
Charles

[MGmirkin]

You seem to imply that is the current is in the form of electrons, it should simply turn into an arc discharge (AKA lightning) and scar the ground beneath, which it doesn't do. Perhaps, if it was a simple electrostatic discharge, without rotation. But wasn't this dealt with in Vonnegut's paper on vortex stabilization of high voltage discharges? IE, when no rotation is present, a spark will jump between electrodes up to a certain distance, and after that distance, no spark will jump the spark gap between the electrodes. However, when rotation is introduced, as with a fan, a discharge DOES occur but at a significantly stepped down intensity. Glow mode instead of arc mode. It seems to me like this hasn't been addressed in the paper (though I'll admit I'm only a page or two in, so maybe it's addressed later?). I guess I'm not sure why you seem to indicate that if an electron current flows, it would have to flow as lightning and not in any lower-intensity form? Also, can it not be that there is a bi-directional flow with electrons carrying part of the current flow in one direction, with +ions or protons carrying part of the overall current the other direction in the same circuit? Does it have to be one or the other (dominated by +ions / protons OR dominated by electrons)?

Just wondering. Will peruse the rest as I have some time. Just on a break & only have so much time ATM. ;o]

Keep on keeping on, of course! =o]

Best,
~Michael

[solrey]

I've been fascinated with tornado's since I was a kid growing up in Indiana. I'm just taking a break right now, but when I get the chance I'm going to read your paper.
Based on your comment, you're proposing a combination of thermodynamics and electromagnetism involved in tornado formation. I believe you are correct in that regard, generally, but I think you're missing the factor of ionospheric discharge. If the Earth/ionosphere/atmosphere is properly viewed as a "leaky" capacitor, there is more than enough energy available in the ionosphere/Earth connection to account for the missing energy that is assumed to be created from the thermodynamic/electrostatic action of the storm itself. I believe that the thermodynamic/electrostatic activity of a storm merely provides a conductive point in the otherwise insulating atmosphere, resulting in a localized lower permitivity of the otherwise high permitivity dielectric atmosphere. A tornado is the discharge vortex that results from this type of ionosphere -> atmosphere -> Earth ground electric connection. I think ignoring the ionosphere is missing a huge part of the picture.

Those are just my thoughts based on your comment. I'm looking forward to reading the paper, though. Admirable work of which I respect your efforts.

[MGmirkin]

Nevertheless, none of the existing EM theories can account for the presence of a tornado in an electric field not powerful enough to create lightning, while tornadoes expend many orders of magnitude more energy than lightning, and where they expend 3 orders of magnitude more energy at the surface than above it.

The bottom line is that tornadoes cannot be explained as electrostatic discharges between the ground and the cloud.

Hmm, as I was pondering this, I'm reminded of the electric sun model, and it may have a bearing on the question...

The typical "electrostatic nonsense" used by pseudo-skeptics tends to rule out a direct electrostatic discharge on the basis of "no relativistic electrons in interplanetary space," etc. However, there are none expected under the electric sun model, as formulated by Don Scott. Precisely because of double layers that tend to concentrate the electric field into a very small region A) extremely close to the sun's surface / atmosphere and b) probably at the outer edge of the heliosphere, with only a DRIFT current in between. The radial electric field permeating interplanetary space is extremely weak. The only places expected under the model to HAVE high electric fields is where double layers are present near the "electrodes" (sun as, I believe anode and heliospheric boundary as virtual cathode).

I wonder whether a similar analysis holds for tornadoes? IE, strong electric field concentrated in a double layer at the surface, but with extremely weak field / current throughout the majority of the column ("positive column" I believe it's called in a glow discharge tube). I just wonder if the glow discharge tube model works for tornadoes as it is supposed to for the Electric Sun?

If so, does that not equally well fit the lack of a "strong" electric field in the majority of the tornadic column, AND the fact that the majority of the action is at the ground next to the electrode (the Earth)? Just as might be expected if a double layer was formed around the electrode (concentrating the strong electric field) and the majority of a discharge tube consisted of the positive column (with an extremely weak electric field). Would not such a glow discharge also account for the various luminous phenomena associated with tornadic innards in several historical anecdotes from people witnessing them?

Whether or not the electric current precedes the vortex or the vortex / wind shear preceded and ENABLES the current across a longer spark gap, is perhaps still debatable under such a conception... Though, Vonnegut seemed to indicate that after increasing the spark gap, no discharge occurred (due to weakened electric field) UNTIL a vortex was created, at which point a lower-intensity discharge (glow mode) occurred than the usual spark (arc mode). So, I'd tend to think that rotation may in some degree precede discharge (as Thompson indicates can happen when discussing his notion of a charge sheath vortex). IE, you can have a shear vortex that is non-electrified. That's what most fan/dust "tornado" machines produce. However, he also says that once charged particles get introduced and currents start to flow, a charged sheath vortex can be rather quickly created.

(Tornado – a natural charged sheath vortex)
http://www.peter-thomson.co.uk/tornado/ ... rnado.html

The Turbulence or Shear Vortex

The simplest is the turbulence vortex, or shear vortex. This is often seen in a dust devil, where an air current flowing over a hot ground surface, rises. As the air rises it starts to rotate, drawing air and dust in at ground level and carrying it upwards through the rotating column to discharge at the top. But note that a dust devil may rapidly become charged and turn into a charged sheath vortex.

The shear vortex can also be seen at the tip of aircraft wings, particularly in conditions of high relative humidity, where the vortex becomes visible as moisture condenses in the lower pressure inside the vortex. These vortices can persist for several minutes, and the large vortices produced by very heavy aircraft can flip a light aircraft following behind. On rare occasions a wingtip turbulence vortex will also become charged and turn into a charged sheath vortex that will rip any following aircraft apart, however strongly built they are.

Turbulence vortices are easy to produce by creating angled air currents and an updraft. Demonstrations of 'tornados' are all turbulence vortices. For one of the best see the experimental setup that created a turbulence dust devil for a commercial at: http://www.reelefx.com/Tornado/40footVolvo.htm

Air can blow against an object and move and lift dust and light objects, but has very little shear strength and so cannot transmit energy through a column of air.

The shear vortex has ragged and turbulent edges, and the centre of the vortex is also ragged in appearance.

The Charged Sheath Vortex

The charge sheath vortex develops within a large charge cloud where the repulsion between the charges is cancelled out,
1 ) Two stationary particles carrying the same electrical charge will repel each other, but within an electric field they will form dipoles that will experience an attractive force.
2 ) In a large charge cloud where the repulsion between the charges is the same in all directions, this force will cancel out
3 ) Two streams of dipoles with the same field charge moving in parallel in a large charge cloud will also develop a force of attraction through their electromagnetic interaction.

The charged sheath vortex is a fast spinning tube of electrically charged air and/or dust molecules.

The high velocity of the particles, all with the same net charge charge, and all rotating in the same direction, creates very large electrodynamic forces (Very similar to an electrical solenoid that produces a powerful electromagnet)

Anyway, it seems to me he's saying that sure there are mechanical vortices. But sometimes a mechanical vortex can become charged and do more interesting things. So, I still wonder whether the wind shear and rotation of a supercell doesn't simply ENABLE the creation of a charge sheath vortex. Much in the same way Vonnegut's vortex enabled a discharge to occur (at a stepped down level) across a spark gap where a stronger arc (pinch, not unlike lightning) was not able to form... And again wondering whether it might be that a double layer concentrates some of the electric field and energy of the discharge near the electrode / surface it's interacting with.

Just my initial 2c.
~Michael Gmirkin

[jjohnson]

This is in a word an astoundingly plausible synthesis. Your work in vector programming has stood you in good stead, not to mention excellent research and knowledge in the appropriate meteorology and understanding and application of EU principles. The photographic examples of associated weather phenomena were especially well done, along with your technical illustrations. The discussion of green light hit home, as, in one part of my life I was an AF pilot. We were taught to, and how to, avoid thunderstorms, and to never fly around a thunderstorm in any area where it looked green, as hail was allegedly being ejected (at altitude) in that vicinity, and people had had very bad days as a result. I have watched large thunderstorms towering two miles above me when I was at FL 410 (41,000 feet). A good detour took you approximately 50 miles out of the way of a storm, if you could afford the fuel. We always looked for hooks in buildups on the weather radar display. Now I know why, and they aren't constrained to just very low altitudes, in my experience. I have observed St. Elmo's fire around the edges of the windows when dodging through weather with embedded thunderstorms at night, and your thesis offers a good reason. I am probably not the only one who (in looking for patterns) observed the prototypical yin-yang spiral pattern embedded in the waterspout photographs, Figures 70 and 71. Does that not look surprisingly like a Peratt spiral section through a pair of Birkeland currents with an axial jet? I am not implying that it is; only that it is interesting how configurations get repeated the more widely one looks for applications involving plasmas in the 'verse. What fun! Thanks for presenting this. I'd buy the book; in fact I plan on it.

[CharlesChandler]

...However, when rotation is introduced, as with a fan, a discharge DOES occur but at a significantly stepped down intensity. Glow mode instead of arc mode...

Hey Michael -- thanks for jumping into the debate! An intelligent critic is a fool's best friend, so I really like intelligent critics... If this work ever makes it out of the basement, it will be in no small part because of your criticisms.

I agree that rotation can increase the threshold for an arc discharge, as Vonnegut demonstrated, and that this COULD help explain how something as energetic as a tornado could be driven by the force of an electrostatic discharge. As such, I should probably make mention of this as a possible contributing factor. Similarly, I should probably make mention of Peter Thomson's work with charged-sheath vortexes, as a rapidly-rotating charge introduces a new set of electrodynamic factors that will help stabilize the vortex. (Peter doesn't establish a likely source of the charge, but my construct does, so here, the two works could overlap.) But if we take a broader range of phenomena into account, a stabilized glow (or dark) discharge, even with a charged sheath, still leaves a lot of stuff on the table.

For example, some tornadoes don't sport much rotation at the surface. In the following image, the motion is clearly straight up. Usually, tornadoes that start out like this will eventually resolve into a rotating vortex, but some persist this way.

La Grange, WY (tornado).jpg (5.99 KiB) Viewed 6254 times

For another example, tornadoes are capable of some wild shapes, but it's hard to imagine how an electric field between the ground and the cloud could establish a discharge that wouldn't follow the shortest distance between the two points. (Certainly lightning can follow a very tortuous path, but that's just because the lightning channel is opened up by the stepped leaders, where an extremely small amount of current paves the way, and then the main discharge follows the same path. But sustained discharges tend to be straight.)

Such observations suggest that we need more that just electrostatic potential, at least to explain the full range of tornadic forms.

Also, can it not be that there is a bi-directional flow with electrons carrying part of the current flow in one direction, with +ions or protons carrying part of the overall current the other direction in the same circuit?

In large tornadoes, there is evidence of sub-vortexes within the main condensation wall. These are drawing air upward. Then there are downdrafts as well, which is somewhat peculiar by fluid dynamic standards. It's interesting to consider the possibility that at least in large tornadoes, there could be a bi-directional exchange going on. But this seems to only be possible in a large tornado with sub-vortexes. Or at least such is the only case where the phenomena have been so pronounced as to be observed and recorded on local instrumentation. Anyway, this deserves more investigation.

...you're missing the factor of ionospheric discharge...

This is another line of reasoning that deserves more attention. Consider the following radar elevation scan of a tornadic storm, and notice that there is reflectivity up to 23 km above the surface. There shouldn't have been anything above 17 km, as there is no way that the updraft in the over-shooting top could have extended that far into the stratosphere. So the researchers dismissed this reflectivity as an artifact of the instrumentation.

Goodland, KS (reflectivity).png (6.35 KiB) Viewed 6549 times

But what if this is being caused by microscopic charged particles getting accelerated upward in the electric field? Unfortunately, this is such an under-studied field of focus that there is virtually nothing upon which to base conclusions.

Hmm, as I was pondering this, I'm reminded of the electric sun model, and it may have a bearing on the question...

All of the comments in this post require a good deal more thought on my part, so I'll reply in a separate post.

I have observed St. Elmo's fire around the edges of the windows when dodging through weather with embedded thunderstorms at night, and your thesis offers a good reason.

Interesting that you mention St. Elmo's fire. This is one of the distinctive EM phenomena observed in tornadic storms, and unlike normal thunderstorms, it is observed not just at the end of the storm, but when the storm is in its most active stage. This is another phenomenon that is poorly understood. In the laboratory, a corona discharge can be created with either the electrons flowing into, or out of, the point source. But since corona discharges take about 100 kV/m to maintain, and since lightning typically occurs in the atmosphere at 30 kV/m or less, it's hard to understand why the electric field doesn't create lightning instead. The answer, of course, is that we don't understand what creates lightning, so the characteristics of St. Elmo's fire don't exactly cause us any new problems. But I've been researching the possibility that glow discharges in the atmosphere might only be possible in the presence of a large positive charge, and where there are no point sources (precipitation) that could initiate the electron avalanche necessary for an arc discharge. In other words, the air itself would have to be positively-charged, not the precipitation in it. So the positively-charged water vapor would have to distribute its charge amongst the surrounding nitrogen and oxygen molecules. After the charge separation process at the top of the storm has done its thing, the diffusion of charges takes time. If this is the case, then the presence of St. Elmo's fire would tell us a lot about the air in that part of the storm.

Thanks for the comments!

Charles

[CharlesChandler]

OK, I promised a reply to Michael's more lengthy post. I think I actually addressed several of the issues already, but I could clarify my position a bit.

The biggest question that I have about the works of Vonnegut and Thomson is: what would an electrostatic discharge DO? We know that there is a current there, because that's been measured, and it's a couple hundred amps. Could be more, or even much more, but that doesn't matter. We can explain the tornadic luminosity that has sometimes been reported as the result of the particles in this discharge meeting their matches at the other end. With Vonnegut's work, we can see how rotation within the vortex lowers the resistance of the air and encourages the discharge. And in Thomson's work, we can see how charges in the vortex wall can help stabilize the rotation. But what DRIVES the tornado?

Vonnegut tried to show how a discharge could heat the air within the tornado, thereby fueling the updraft, but this didn't work out. The amount of current that it would take to drive a tornado with joule heating is simply not present. Thomson implies that a tornado is a normal fluid dynamic vortex, but with a charged sheath that extends it all of the way to the surface of the Earth, like an extra vacuum cleaner attachment, where the energy is still coming from the same place, but it can be released somewhere else if it can be contained. But that's not going to work either. The electrodynamic forces in the charged sheath are a function of the speed at which the charges are moving. When the vortex hits the surface and encounters friction, the air will slow down, and consequently, the electrodynamic forces will get weaker. The weaker EM forces will then do a poorer job of containing the energy, and the vortex will fall apart at the surface, pretty much the same way that fluid dynamic vortexes do, for the same reason: friction.

So we are left with an electric current that doesn't do anything, except maybe get the vortex to glow sometimes, or host short-distance arc discharges at the tornado-mesocyclone interface. In other words, EM is just an artifact of the thermodynamic fluxes within the storm.

If we actually want to understand how tornadoes work, and most importantly, why they are capable of expending so much energy at the surface, we have to keep looking. The thermodynamics camp can't help us. The air in a tornado follows the path of greatest resistance, to do what it does at the surface, and this cannot be explained with thermodynamics.

So if the defining characteristics of tornadoes cannot be explained with thermodynamics, nor with electrostatics, what could it be? This is the question that my work seeks to answer.

In the end, I concluded that tornadoes ARE electrically-charged, but they are not exchanges between the ground and the cloud. Rather, it is the tornadic inflow that is already charged. Then, all of the electrostatic phenomena can be explained, AND we can explain how the low pressure in the mesocyclone can extend to the surface and do so much destruction.

[redeye]

For another example, tornadoes are capable of some wild shapes, but it's hard to imagine how an electric field between the ground and the cloud could establish a discharge that wouldn't follow the shortest distance between the two points.

Lightning forms wild shapes too: image image video

Not that I've got an explanation for any of this.

Cheers!

[solrey]

I think you've done some outstanding work, Charles! Bravo. I think adding the info that's in this post, which is related to the ionosphere to Earth connection among other little tidbits, to the mighty fine work you've done, would pretty much nail it.

For another example, tornadoes are capable of some wild shapes, but it's hard to imagine how an electric field between the ground and the cloud could establish a discharge that wouldn't follow the shortest distance between the two points.

KInk Instabilities. A well known discharge phenomena.
Electric discharge does not always take the shortest distance between two points. Check out this vid. A mis-hap at an electric power transfer station. Power was still flowing through one of the large switch/couplers when a set of 3 was opened. Wicked awesome discharge happens between the contacts as the couplers move apart. Not even close to the shortest distance between the two contacts.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eqRkEMfEtTo&feature=related

That's why lightning bolts pretty much always have some form of corkscrew shape. We see them basically in 2-D, though, so they just appear jagged and crooked, but it's actually corkscrew in 3-D.

Kink instability.

Non-luminescent mode discharge (I refuse to use the term "dark" anything these days ) has been demonstrated to create a discharge vortex. Essentially a mini-tornado that even kicks up dust/powder applied to the cathode. Discharge vortices can be pretty orderly and symmetric, they can have "kink" instabilities, or they can develop diocotron instabilities.
Here's a paper on diocotron instabilities. Good stuff. Might explain multiple, smaller tornado's/tornadic vortices, essentially orbiting a larger tornado/tornadic vortex, which is often seen in the really big twisters. This paper's good for math junkies too, but knowing maths is not necessary because the written descriptions are great.

http://nonneutral.pppl.gov/pdfpapers/PP.1998.5.3497.RD.pdf

Here is a really good paper, imo, regarding arc and glow discharge physics. It's research that was done relating to manufacturing processes, but the explanations of the physics of electric glow and arc discharge is very good.

http://www.osti.gov/bridge/servlets/purl/861163-A0F82g/861163.pdf

Now consider the ionosphere to be the anode and the Earth to be the cathode in a 'cathiodic arc', which occurs at room temperature. No heat necessary.
Also consider the auto-ionization of H2O. As I understand the process, any given volume of water is slightly ionized all the time, while ionization comes and goes from individual molecules, as a whole the entire volume maintains a constant level of ionization. I don't recall the specifics of the ionization levels, don't have time right now to dig up it up, but it's enough that I consider H2O to be a quasi-plasma.

I totally agree that very early on in the process thermodynamic action facilitates a lowering of the permitivity of the dielectric atmosphere, which is the trigger for an ionosphere to Earth, non-luminiscent discharge vortex which then becomes the dominant force driving the storm, of which a few of the discharges become more localized on the cathodic surface of the Earth thus producing a tornado.

Just something to think about.

[Anaconda]

Hi CharlesChandler,

Like the rest, I commend your effort and thoughtful work.

My two cents worth echo solrey, consider a floor to ceiling conception with the Earth's surface being the negative electroplate and the ionosphere being the positive electroplate as shown in the schematic of this TPOD (see link):

http://www.thunderbolts.info/tpod/2004/ ... acitor.htm

It seems like I'm sucking up solrey's dust , but I also think the non-linear qualities of electromagnetism allows for all the variations -- instabilities -- different shaped vortex.

Yes, the thermodynamics start it off, but it's electrodynamics that provide the highlights. One author even thought that tornadoes could contain plasmoids based on witness descriptions.

If one allows for an ionosphere to Earth's surface flow of electric current then all the energy that is needed can potentially be present. It is now starting to be recognized that electrons do flow down from the Van Allen ring currents (radiation belts) and then on down into the ionosphere and from there into the Earth, itself.

Charles, keep up the good work

[CharlesChandler]

KInk Instabilities. A well known discharge phenomena.

OK, I stand well-corrected -- thanks! Though I didn't explicitly say so, I was thinking that the crooks and bends in tornadoes were because of external magnetic pressure from other moving charges in the vicinity. But I never fully convinced myself that the magnetic force could be powerful enough under the circumstances to do that. It looks like kink instability within the tornado itself is what I was missing. So I'm adding that to the "Undulating Vortexes" section, and I won't dismiss any more electrostatic theories on these grounds.

Non-luminescent mode discharge has been demonstrated to create a discharge vortex. Essentially a mini-tornado that even kicks up dust/powder applied to the cathode.

Do you have an example of this -- it would be very significant. One of the main reasons for my questioning the electrostatics-only approach was that I couldn't figure out how the discharge would actually accelerate the air, and this left me without an explanation for the driving force in a tornado. Typically we would expect the electrons in a discharge to hop from atom to atom, but without accelerating those atoms in the direction of the current. But if I was wrong about that too, then my whole previous post about "discharges not DOING anything" is incorrect, and I have a bunch more stuff to re-think.

This would then beg the re-thinking of something Michael said earlier about weak electric fields and shielding double-layers. In fact, the electric field inside a tornado has never been successfully measured. So when we say that nah, there's no electric field present, we're more accurately saying that there's no field outside of the tornado, and we assume that this means that the electric force cannot be driving the tornado. But there are a lot of reasons to suspect that there is, in fact, a positive double-layer between the cloud and the ground, that are themselves negative. The low pressure inside the tornado is then the high-conductivity hole through the double-layer. When combined with the mesocyclone, there is then a conducting column from the surface to the bottom of the stratosphere. Hmmm...

[solrey]

Charles, you possess a quite admirable quality in accepting feedback and being open to new details. That's how we learn!
Even though I've studied atmospheric sciences, I learned a thing or two from your paper.

I've been chasing down some plumbing issues in this +100yr. old house we live in, so I forgot to mention a crucial factor in my most recent post.

As the Ionosphere -> Earth connection is basically a "leaky" capacitor, the storm is also a capacitor due to the water vapor and motion of the airmass being able to store voltage potential supplied from the ionosphere, by it's ability to breakdown the resistance in the insulating atmosphere, then discharge that voltage potential to ground via arc, lightning, mechanical motion of storm rotation, or non-luminescent discharge vortices, tornado's.
Remember, one of the ways an electric potential can discharge/dissipate, or perform "work", is in the kinetic energy in the form of 'mechanical' rotation.
Also, we are dealing with ionization, free charge carriers, in a gas. Most of the charged particles, electrons/ions, move freely, not like electrons bumping each other down a solid wire.

Here's an interesting abstract relating to rotation in a dusty plasma, regarding my comment about non-luminous, discharge vortices.

http://www.sciencedirect.com/science?_ob=ArticleURL&_udi=B6TVM-47TF89X-3&_user=10&_rdoc=1&_fmt=&_orig=search&_sort=d&_docanchor=&view=c&_searchStrId=959956270&_rerunOrigin=google&_acct=C000050221&_version=1&_urlVersion=0&_userid=10&md5=65eafca9794f0b14e5acc53b2dbebacc

We report experimental observations of spontaneous mass rotation of a strongly coupled dusty plasma cloud without external magnetic field. The rotating structure resembles a convective cell pattern in the vertical plane and shows clear evidence of collective behavior as well as the influence of gravity on its angular speed. Vortex motion of dust cloud was followed right from the equilibrium state. It is identified that dust charge gradient perpendicular to gravity play important role in the generation of vortex motion.

Here's the abstract for the following link.

http://wattsupwiththat.files.wordpress.com/2009/06/naturegeohurricanes.pdf

Hurricanes are the Earth's most deadly storms, causing tremendous devastation around the globe every year. Forecasters are quite successful in predicting the pathways of hurricanes days in advance1, but hurricane intensification is less accurately predicted. Here we analyse the evolution of maximum winds and total lightning frequency every 6 h during the entire lifetime of 56 hurricanes around the globe. We find that in all of these hurricanes, lightning frequency and maximum sustained winds are significantly correlated (mean correlation coefficient of 0.82), where the maximum sustained winds and minimum pressures in hurricanes are preceded by increases in lightning activity approximately one day before the peak winds. We suggest that increases in lightning activity in hurricanes are related to enhanced convection that increases the rate of moistening of the lower troposphere, which in turn leads to the intensification of hurricanes. As lightning activity can now be monitored continuously in hurricanes at any location around the globe3, lightning data may contribute to better hurricane forecasts in the future.

I suggest that it's an increase in voltage potential supplied by the ionosphere, which in turn leads to intensification of hurricanes in the form of rapidly acting, increased arc discharges/lightning, and a slower to act kinetic energy dissipation resulting in increased mechanical rotation/wind speed.

I suggest that if ionospheric discharge (sprites/elves/blue jets) of tornado producing storms were monitored, that we would see a correlation with increased ionospheric discharge, increasing the strength of the EM field of the storm, prior to tornado formation. I think an early warning system should include these factors.

[solrey]

Here's another interesting link:

http://www.newscientist.com/article/dn16640-electrical-storm-signatures-could-make-tornado-test.html

As the separated particles rotate around the vortex, they act as a source of low frequency electromagnetic radiation. Non-rotating storms produce nothing more than electrical noise.

I think they're picking up the radio signature of a non-luminous discharge vortex.

Although I wonder if there is often a low intensity glow mode. I grew up in Indiana ( that's why tornado's, and lightning, are such points of interest ) and remember seeing some tornadic storms glow an eerie yellow/green at night. I even stood directly underneath a broad low funnel not much lower than the rotating cloud mass at ~1000' high, less than 20 minutes before it touched down ~10 or 12 miles away. It was nighttime and really dark otherwise, but not only did the clouds have a dim, yellowish glow, lightning constantly danced along the bottom of this pale yellow rotating cloud layer. I didn't need sensitive electronics to tell there was a strong electric field. My entire body had all the hairs standing straight out, even the hair on my head. There was absolutely no wind on me at the time, which was pretty weird while watching all that motion not far above and it had been windy a few minutes before, so my hair wasn't sticking out from being blown around.
This pic is a good example of what it was like.



I can't find the link again, darnit, but I remember an article about detecting/measuring EM fields, around storms, that were much larger than the visible storm itself, and stronger than expected. It was yet another surprising result... for some.

Anyways, I hope some of this might help to add a couple more spices to an already tasty recipe.

[MGmirkin]

Hey Michael -- thanks for jumping into the debate! An intelligent critic is a fool's best friend, so I really like intelligent critics... If this work ever makes it out of the basement, it will be in no small part because of your criticisms.

Well, thanks.

I agree that rotation can increase the threshold for an arc discharge, as Vonnegut demonstrated, and that this COULD help explain how something as energetic as a tornado could be driven by the force of an electrostatic discharge. As such, I should probably make mention of this as a possible contributing factor.

Or rather can lower the discharge power requirement threshold and extend the range of the discharge. (Lower current density and more diffuse glow discharge, rather than a high current, high density pinched down arc discharge.)

Cool beans.

For another example, tornadoes are capable of some wild shapes, but it's hard to imagine how an electric field between the ground and the cloud could establish a discharge that wouldn't follow the shortest distance between the two points.

However, by the same logic, it's "hard to imagine how an electric field between the cloud and ground could establish positive lightning that takes a path many, many miles away, largely horizontal before violently curving tot he ground to strike out of what seems an otherwise 'clear blue sky'..." Yet, it happens.

Paths of least resistance, etc. etc. However we want to justify it physically. Yes, it's weird, but yet it happens. So, argument to incredulity or argument to probability / oversimplification may seem satisfying at first blush, but counter examples can be found. So, a grain of salt.

(Certainly lightning can follow a very tortuous path, but that's just because the lightning channel is opened up by the stepped leaders, where an extremely small amount of current paves the way, and then the main discharge follows the same path. But sustained discharges tend to be straight.)

One wonders whether this depends on the experimental setup? By default I'm guessing most scientists will tend to put electrodes one above the next in a straight line. What happens if you move the bottom electrode say a few inches to the right? 5? 10? Then try the same experiment. With or without introduced rotation or at least turbulence. Will it still maintain a straight shape, or will it "rope out" and do something less, shall we say, orderly? Would be an interesting experiment to replicate and play around with the parameters and positioning a bit.

I recall from some reading on Dendritic Flux Avalanches in superconductors (don't ask me where this came from, am just following a train of thought I was having), that the discharges (see figure 5b) tend to move in steps with a high intensity "leader" or "tip" that paves the way. I ASSUME that the bright tip is a region of intense electric field that perhaps serves to ionize nearby material and create a path for the discharge. I keep thinking "double layer" for some reason. And maybe it's not that precisely? But some analogy? It just seems like there's a very concentrated region and the rest is of considerably less electric field / current density (though probably higher than the surroundings). They also talk about possible opposite leaders moving the other direction as well. Not unlike a typical lightning discharge.

Anyway, I assume it's a similar process that happens in lightning. I seem to recall that some tornado videos I've seen show the tornadoes descending in discernable steps. Possibly over a much longer time period than lightning. It just seems like it descends to some point, stays there briefly, rotating, then descends further, etc. Only recall this on a few of them. Maybe it was just part of the normal random variation in tornadoes, though. Dunno?

Just struck me for some reason, so I figured I'd put it out there. May be nothing... Y'never know.

This is another line of reasoning that deserves more attention. Consider the following radar elevation scan of a tornadic storm, and notice that there is reflectivity up to 23 km above the surface. There shouldn't have been anything above 17 km, as there is no way that the updraft in the over-shooting top could have extended that far into the stratosphere. So the researchers dismissed this reflectivity as an artifact of the instrumentation.

Goodland, KS (reflectivity).png

Why am I wanting to say either "blue jet" or "tall hot tower" (not unlike hurricanes)?

http://www.nasa.gov/centers/goddard/new ... louds.html
http://www.nasa.gov/vision/earth/lookin ... owers.html

Maybe there is something to the "as above, so below" bit about looking toward possible contributing factors from elsewhere in the atmosphere. Possibly somewhat remote from the storm / tornado itself?

Again, maybe nothing. Just recalled reading that recently when looking into hurricanes. Quite randomly stumbled across it.

Hmm, as I was pondering this, I'm reminded of the electric sun model, and it may have a bearing on the question...

All of the comments in this post require a good deal more thought on my part, so I'll reply in a separate post.

Interesting that you mention St. Elmo's fire. This is one of the distinctive EM phenomena observed in tornadic storms, and unlike normal thunderstorms, it is observed not just at the end of the storm, but when the storm is in its most active stage. This is another phenomenon that is poorly understood. In the laboratory, a corona discharge can be created with either the electrons flowing into, or out of, the point source. But since corona discharges take about 100 kV/m to maintain, and since lightning typically occurs in the atmosphere at 30 kV/m or less, it's hard to understand why the electric field doesn't create lightning instead. The answer, of course, is that we don't understand what creates lightning, so the characteristics of St. Elmo's fire don't exactly cause us any new problems.

Doesn't St. Elmo's Fire generally happen more frequently from/around pointy objects where the electric field is more concentrated by the pointiness? To the point of breaking down the atmosphere nearby and causing the glow discharge?

I remember reading about this, but the reference(s) elude me. I forget WHERE I read about for the moment. If I recall I'll maybe toss in a link at a later point. But nothing jumping out at me. Some random reading or another I did, don't recall if there's a particular topic I was looking into at the time though. Otherwise I might be able to retrace my steps and find it again... May have been reading about EDM (Electrical Discharge Machining) technology? Or something similar... Maybe not. Could have just been reading on corona discharge of St. Elmo's fire...

But I've been researching the possibility that glow discharges in the atmosphere might only be possible in the presence of a large positive charge, and where there are no point sources (precipitation) that could initiate the electron avalanche necessary for an arc discharge.

From my understanding glow discharge vs arc discharge generally has to do with input current strength. Though I'm not well enough versed in plasma physics to answer more correctly than that, ATM.

http://glow-discharge.com/Index.html?/Discharges_1.html
http://glow-discharge.com/Images/GD_Regime.jpg

Sorry on the low picture quality there. That's the best they've got. The original's from some paper or another, though I don't recall the name of it off hand. I think Dave Smith tracked it down for me at one point. I'd have to look through my e-mail...

After the charge separation process at the top of the storm has done its thing...

Hmm, ye olde "charge separation process," eh? How do we know that charges are not already separated and simply moving / recombining through the electrical processes we see?

I know the standard model says everything is neutral, neutral, neutral to the umpteenth degree due to "charge neutralization," but reality is messier than that. It's pretty easy to show that plasma is NOT a superconductor (at the very least not low-density plasma like that in space, and probably not high density plasma either; just a hunch). If it's not a superconductor then magnetic fields aren't frozen in and there CAN be voltage potentials between different regions in a plasma, which means there must be charge imbalances causing the voltage potentials between the different regions.

Anyway, do we know that there aren't free charges moving about in an imbalanced way and that the light shows and energetic displays aren't simply those charges working through and trying to BALANCE the unbalanced state? Could it not be that charges are coming into the atmosphere from space and interacting with the charges in the Earth, and trying to eventually come to a "least interaction" state (until the next hiccup, that is)?

Do we really need to invent a "charge separation" mechanism to separate assumed "neutral" charges or can we entertain (at least for the sake of argument) the notion that charges not in perfect balance are occasionally being introduced to the environment and leading to some of the behaviors we see? Not unlike the TPOD on space weather over Africa:

(Electric Space Weather Baffles Scientists)
http://www.thunderbolts.info/tpod/2008/ ... eather.htm

Now it is known that electrical events occur when clouds of charged particles -- Coronal Mass Ejections (CME) -- erupt from the Sun. If the eruption is intense and Earth is in the path of these charged particles, the result will be a proton storm, with potential serious disruptions of communications on Earth. And this arrival of protons provokes a response from the ionosphere in the form of electron concentrations (plumes) rising into space. In other words, it is an electrical TRANSACTION -- a CURRENT -- connecting the "negative" earth and the positively charged Sun at the center of the Solar System.

Best,
~Michael Gmirkin

[MGmirkin]

Vonnegut tried to show how a discharge could heat the air within the tornado, thereby fueling the updraft, but this didn't work out. The amount of current that it would take to drive a tornado with joule heating is simply not present.

Agreed that joule heating, as I recall was ruled out.

But isn't that why several others specifically investigated and theorized upon Lorentz forces (particularly because joule heating was insufficient, which had been known for a while, I think, when the more recent papers came out), finding Lorentz forces a plausible mechanism?

Electric field and Lorentz force contribution to atmospheric vortex phenomena

Although the relationship between tornados and electricity has been examined in the past and has generally been discounted, that early work focused on the flow of the electric current for producing Joule heating (heating by collisions of the atmospheric molecules and particles), without considering the circular motion of the charged particles themselves [5]. This paper will demonstrate that vertical electric fields and the Lorentz force, acting on charged particles that exist in these vortex phenomena, plausibly contributes to the set of physics that will explain tornados and other phenomena.

The article specifically notes that joule heating was known to be insufficient, which was the reason Lorentz forces were investigated as a strong contributory factor.

If the existence of tornados and dust devils is in part due to the Lorentz force and the action of the electric fields on charged particles, then there should be some observable evidence to justify further investigation. Ampere’s law states that a moving charge should create a magnetic field. One possible mechanism that should be observable is the magnetic field that is generated due to the uplift motion of charged particles. If the tornados and dust devils contain moving charged particles, then these fields should exist, and may have already been detected and reported.

In fact, several experiments have recorded the magnetic fields created by Earth’s dust devils [2], and tornados [14]. Even as early the 1960s, magnetic fields observed from tornados were used to deduce the amount of current (charged particles) that was being conducted in the tornado. One example reported is a computation of 225A flowing through a tornado on 27 May 1962 [5].

Other early research attempted to replicate tornados in a lab using electricity. Vonnegut succeeded in forming a small vortex using only electric fields [15]. His test device consisted of a charged base plate and a ring charged to the opposite polarity at a height of a maximum of 70 cm. He measured 2.5A of current passing up through the core. Unfortunately, no early observation or test considered the possible contribution of the Lorentz force to definition of the structure of the vortex. Vonnegut designed his test device with angled louvers on the circumference of his device to impart initial radial velocity to the inrushing air. The vortex he created had two regions—an inner core and an outer sheath. The 1 cm wide inner core apparently consisted of ionized air, which appeared to glow but not rotate. The outer sheath, which did appear to rotate, grew from the inner core at the bottom to as wide as 2 cm at the top. The electric fields he created (2 kV over 70 cm, or about 2.8 kV/m), are well within observed vertical electric field magnitudes associated with tornados and dust devils.

The last part of the puzzle is to consider the tornado on the larger scale. What is the total power used to create the violent winds of the tornado? Why would a tornado uplift many charged particles? The answer may be that the charged particles are being uplifted by the electric fields above the tornado; these electric fields were formed by the charge separation process of the storm clouds. Usually, these electric fields lead to lightning. It has been observed, however, that a rapid decrease in lightning immediately precedes the formation of a tornado. As has been suggested several times by several researchers, the tornado serves as an alternative conduit to lightning for transferring electric charge [12].

Perhaps here, again, the rotation steps down the discharge from arc (lightning) to glow or less (tornado)? As they say, an alternate route for discharge...

The harder-to-convince are often persuaded by observing a single drop of water placed on an electrode of a Wimshurst
static electric generator—as the operator attempts to charge up the system, the water drop will elongate to a point and eject charged tiny water droplets to the other electrode, reducing the number of large sparks when the device is in operation.

If the charge in the clouds above the hypothetical tornado is being partially neutralized by the movement of the tiny charged particles within the tornado, then these particles can be considered as electrical current [...]

More discussion in the paper itself.

In any event, they seemed to think that their estimates of particle densities, Lorentz forces, etc. were sufficiently reasonable/ compelling to warrant further investigation.

Best,
~Michael Gmirkin