Anaconda wrote:...why the smallest radius at the surface? It is plausible that the electric field and current density is the strongest at the surface, therefore, the magnetic field is strongest which constricts the vortex and increases rotational velocity (something akin to a plasma Z-pinch).
This is something similar to what Wallace Luchuk is saying in his paper:
http://www.cafes.net/wallytul/ttheory.htmBut maybe you need to help me through this. He is saying that since the Earth is a better conductor than the air, the current density will be greater in the Earth than in the air, and this is what concentrates the energy at the surface. But if the current is flowing from the ground through the air and into the cloud (or on up to the ionosphere), then wouldn't the total current density be the same at each elevation? In a powerful electric field, we would expect for there to be a build-up of coulombs at the surface of the Earth, where the conductivity allowed the charges to pool up easily. But when hitting the resistance of the air, that's where they stop, and only within the low-pressure channel of the tornado will there be any real current. Up through the tornado, we would expect the resistance to be pretty much the same, so the current density should be the same. So the Lorentz force should be the same, from the surface all of the way up to its destination, and the energy release AT the surface is inexplicable. What am I missing?
Anaconda wrote:...why do tornadoes "seek the surface"...
Here we have to be careful not to think of the vortex as an entity, but rather, as a condition in a medium. So the vortex doesn't seek anything. The visible aspect of the vortex is just that portion of the vortex that achieved the pressure drop necessary for condensation. The particle flow in the vortex is upward, and if it's going fast enough, the vortex will extend further down. But it's not a physical entity that's being stretched down to the ground, but rather, a low-pressure threshold that's extending to the ground.
Anaconda wrote:Could this be akin to a reverse air/water vortex, i.e., like water going down a drain?
There are some interesting permutations to this idea, but I've never seen anybody work it all of the way through. In very large tornadoes, there is evidence of both updrafts and downdrafts within the outer wall. But I don't see how this could be a bi-directional current, for the simple reason that there is nothing to insulate these currents from each other. Opposite charges flowing in opposite directions will get magnetically-pinched together, and then there's going to be particle collisions and neutralized charges. The result is not really what you would call a bi-directional current, but rather, at some point in there, positive and negative charges are going to meet up, and there might be some arcing going on. This will typically be at the positive pole, because as you mentioned, electrons move far more freely than positive ions. So there won't be any kind of sustained bi-directional charge streams.
My opinion about the updraft/downdraft phenomenon is that there is an outer wall that is defined by the fluid dynamic forces (low pressure, centrifugal force), and then there could be one or more sub-vortexes within the outer wall, where the radius would be defined by the effectiveness of the magnetic pinch effect in consolidating the charged air in the updraft. If you play around with all of the factors, you can wind up with a magnetically-pinched updraft that is smaller than the fluid dynamic vortex, if the angular momentum of the inflowing air is great enough. In other words, if the air coming in has a lot of angular momentum, it could wind up just spinning in a circle, waiting for its chance to get drawn into the REAL updraft, which is inside the magnetically-pinched charge stream in the sub-vortex. Outside of the sub-vortex, but inside the outer wall of the tornado, there will be a low pressure that could draw air from higher up in the cloud. But this would have to be neutral or charged the same way as the updraft, in order to not merge with the updraft. So if the updraft is positive, then the downdraft inside the tornado would have to be positive as well, in which case both charge streams would repel each other, or the downdrafts could be neutral. But again, that's not a bi-directional current.
Anaconda wrote:Please take my suggestions only as friendly possible avenues of investigation
Absolutely, and thanks! Anything that makes me think harder is good stuff...
MGmirkin wrote:we'd be considering the anode glow or anode dark space region of the diagram?
As I understand it, in an actual glow discharge, the stratification of behaviors is the result of the different quantum states of the gas being ionized. But before we start hitting these thresholds, in a luminescence-challenged discharge, we should see a smooth voltage gradient from cathode to anode -- is that correct?
As concerns double-layers, I think that I'm getting confused, and probably because the model that I'm working on places a great deal of significance on double-layers, but I think that I'm talking about different double-layers from what you're talking about. I've got the supercell as a sort of toroidal plasmoid, with a positive double-layer wrapping around the outside, and squeezing up through the very center of the toroidal flow within the supercell. And I'm contending that the behavior of this positive double-layer at the surface give us an explanation for tornadoes. Then, when you start talking about double-layers from the ES model, I can't get it all sorted out.
So, have you got the Earth as the cathode, and the ionosphere as the double-layer?
BTW, I'm not questioning the ES model. I consider it to be the only convincing explanation ever proposed for the Sun. And I'm actively considering the possibility of a surface-to-ionosphere discharge playing some sort of significant role in the behavior of supercells and tornadoes. I'm just not willing to say yup, that's electromagnetic too, no need to work it all of the way through.
I think we can nail this thing, in specific terms, and I'm still convinced that a complete theory of supercells and tornadoes might lead to effective tornado prevention. Supercells are close enough to the ground that we can shoot wires up into the clouds, and discharge the potential. So if the supercell is storing charges, and if that's a necessary condition for tornadoes, then we can do something about it. I know how crazy this sounds, but in physics, sometimes it's not the physicist saying crazy things who is the crazy one -- sometimes it's just Mother Nature getting her extreme physics on!
And if we learn directly from Mother Nature, we can get our extreme physics on too...
solrey wrote:...the pinch effect constricts the diameter of the column...
Just one comment about z-pinches -- I have found it all too easy to mix metaphors when studying atmospheric electrodynamics and thermodynamics, and it takes a good deal of attention to detail to keep it all sorted out. Wind speeds in the troposphere max out at something like 150 m/s (335 mph) in the most extreme supercells. At this or any lower speed, the magnetic pinch effect will be present, but very weak. So we have to be careful not to attribute behaviors to the pinch effect of which they are simply not capable in these circumstances. And if we're talking about the movement of electrons, which are capable of far greater speeds, where the pinch effect will be much more robust, we have to be careful not to be thinking of fast electrons that are accelerating the air to fast speeds, because electrons don't really accelerate atoms -- they just hop from one to the next, leaving the atoms more or less in the same place. So while it's easy to think of electrodynamics and thermodynamics together, and to mix-and-match properties to get an explanation for a phenomenon, it's also easy to introduce disconnects into the framework. This is why I'm persisting on some of my questions about the electrostatic discharge regime.
In my opinion, the more useful construct involves thinking of the charges as being already present in the tornadic inflow. So it's not an exchange between the ground and the cloud (or the ionosphere). It's a flux within a toroidal plasmoid, where the tornado will take on discharge-like properties, because the tornadic inflow is already charged, and because it convenes at the centerline of the storm and then heads upward from there. But neither a positive nor a negative discharge from the ground will behave exactly like a tornado.
solrey wrote:A complete explanation in an Electric Universe requires a complete "circuit", no? One of the foundations of the EU is that nothing is isolated in the universe. Everything is connected.
Absolutely!
Grey Cloud wrote:Has anyone done any research into what's happening on/under the ground below the tornado?
What little research that I've seen concluded that the electric field dissipates in a hemispheric pattern below the surface. But there are so many perturbing factors that I'm not sure that this can be taken as gospel. I think that it's reasonable to believe that the current could be getting pinched inside the Earth. But this isn't going to create an hourglass form of discharge. The magnetic pinch effect is a function of the amount of charge, and the speed at which the charge is moving. We would expect for the charge to move at the same speed once it enters the atmosphere, until it gets wherever it is going. So we would expect for the tornado to be a cylinder, not a funnel.
solrey wrote:I outlined the areas where tornado's are likely to occur on a map of crustal magnetic anomalies.
This is really cool! Is there a key to colors in the image?
