Electric Clouds

[remelic]

Here is a storm system I tracked in late June, early July.



The double vortex. Reminds me of Venus - South Pole double vortex...



Cheers!

[Osmosis]

The good old Sigmoid?

[mharratsc]

Charles said:

I'm just saying that the standard EU position is oversimplified.

No argument there- the whole of the EU position regarding tornado physics is simply an adaptation of electrical vortice physics.

However, I would think that there are some dynamics of electrical vortices that probably weren't brought to bear by the original tornado researchers who looked into this however-many-moons-ago.

For instance- did anyone ever think that maybe what a tornado is doing is ripping material from the ground by EDM (electrical discharge machining)? You've heard, I'm sure, the 'levitation' stories regarding tornados- that seems like a perfect fit to me. Would explain the lack of a 'touchdown point' for a discharge.

Additionally, if you'll remember me pointing out that one Russian video from your site, where that funnel formed right outside those girls window, and you could see the multiple twisting filaments of current forming in the swirling base of the tornado prior to it actually touching down? That implies to me some very interesting dynamics that you don't usually see with electrical sparking... something more akin to the multiple filaments found in a plasma 'pinch' effect. Multiple filaments, tapering down in a cone, rotation... yeah.

In any event, I think you're right about the 'air-above-the-ground' thing, Charles. I think we're looking at a double layer charge separation going on, with Earth charge, ground charge, and cloud charge, and I think what might cause some of the interesting physics going on is that the movement of charge between the three layers is not at an equal rate- and that fact is what begets some of the oddities of tornado physics.

'Course, this is all just surmising on my part- I have no claims to fame regarding science knowledge! I'm just pretty good at thinking outside the box is all.

Good to hear from you again too, m'friend!

[CharlesChandler]

I still say it does not serve EU to try to make unmeasured electric fields do things they are simply unnecessary for.

I stand up and applaud this sentiment. I have become convinced that many, many anomalies in mainstream theories, in many disciplines, can be resolved by taking the effects of electromagnetism into account. But to switch from a gravity-only model to an EM-only model isn't going to get us closer to the truth. Rather, it will make us just as wrong as the people that we criticize, and at the end of the day, we will not have furthered the EM initiative -- we will have discredited it. So it really comes down to whether the EU is an "alternative" view, just as flawed in its obsession with one set of principles as the existing framework (though it owes its allegiance to the "other" principles), or is it an opportunity for major advances in many disciplines? I think that we can do better than just come up with a view that is diametrically opposed to the mainstream.

As concerns the debate over the influence of EM in cloud condensation, there is a lot that is not fully understood, but we're past the point of pure conjecture, and we have to look at the data that are available to establish the context of the debate. Then we can entertain conjecture in the areas that are not understood.

The general framework to which I adhere is as follows. I didn't invent any of this -- I just use this because it is sufficiently accurate for my purposes, and it is the simplest framework that answers the most questions.

There's no mistaking that the thermal energy stored in water vapor, which is released in the condensation process, powers the updrafts in thunderstorms. There's also no mistaking that a 50 m/s updraft can keep a golfball-sized hailstone (r = 22 mm) suspended in air, as its terminal velocity is only 15 m/s. Smaller clumps of precipitation have even lower terminal velocities, so getting precipitation to stay more-or-less suspended in the air during the timeframe of a thunderstorm doesn't necessarily require invoking electric or magnetic fields to offset gravity. And forget about magnetic fields (such as the Earth's), as it would take a field roughly 200,000 times stronger than the Earth's to overpower the gravitational force on liquid or solid water, since water is only infinitesimally responsive to the magnetic force. So for the mainstream to contend that water is hoisted to the top of the storm by thermal updrafts, which then only comes down slowly, because of the low terminal velocity of the precipitates, and because they have a long way to fall, is not a bad first answer. In order to see the cracks in the foundation, you have to look closer.

The first major problem in that framework is explaining how golfball-sized hailstones can sometimes form within the first 10 minutes of the storm becoming organized. So the issue is the aggregation rate.

The accretion of water vapor into supercooled aerosols and ice crystals, in such a short period of time, obviously needs help from a force more powerful than just random covalent bonding. The most likely candidate is the dipolar nature of water molecules. In the fair weather field (100 V/m), the electric force will not affect the translational velocity of the (as yet neutrally-charged) molecules, but it will polarize them, and this means that with respect to neighboring molecules, each will show opposite charges to the other, resulting in an electrostatic potential between them. This will greatly increase the chance of molecular aggregation.

Still in the presence of the fair weather field, the aggregates then become dipoles on a larger scale, showing a positive charge at the bottom (facing the negatively-charged Earth), and a negative charge at the top (facing the positively-charged ionosphere). This sets up the conditions necessary for electron transfer in particle collisions. A larger particle falling through the field, showing a positive charge on its bottom, will be attracted to a smaller particle in its path, which is showing a negative charge on its top. When they collide, electrons are transferred to the larger particle, and are absorbed by its electron cloud. This leaves the smaller particle positively-charged, which is then repelled by the positive face of the larger particle. When the larger particle falls past the smaller one, there are two possibilities. Either the smaller particle will fall in with the larger particle, attracted to the negative charge at the top of the larger particle, in which case the two particles will merge, or the smaller particle will have been blown too far out of the path, in which case it will be left behind with a net positive charge, and with the larger particle gaining a net negative charge. Obviously, both of these outcomes occur, and both are easy to understand in this framework.

Then, as larger, negatively-charged aggregates fall because of a higher terminal velocity, the main negative charge region develops below the main positive charge region in the storm. This field has the same orientation as the fair weather field (between the negatively-charged Earth and the positively-charged ionosphere). Hence the emerging charge separation enhances the existing field, and strengthens the molecular/particular dipoles, which increases the chance of collisions, which increases the accretion rate and the charge separation process.

Other charging mechanisms have been proposed, such as cosmic radiation, which knocks electrons loose, leaving positive ions behind. The free electron so created might find its way back to the same atom, or if it happens to hit a larger aggregate (such as a hailstone), it might get lost in the large electron cloud of that aggregate. This model also accounts for the larger precipitation developing a negative charge. I think that I can speak for most researchers in saying that the whole story is "all of the above" -- all of the charge separation mechanisms that have been identified (and perhaps others that haven't) are all partially responsible for the effects.

The next anomaly is the nature of the main negative charge region. Every storm is different, but in a normal cumulonimbus cloud (not a supercell), it seems that a pancake-like structure emerges in the middle of the cloud, 5~7 km above the ground, which is the width of the storm itself (5 km wide or more), but only 1 km or so in height, and this is where the main body of negative charges are to be found in the cloud. The true nature of this region is contentious, but we do know that the electric field between the pancake and the positively-charged anvil of the storm exerts a force more powerful than gravity on the precipitation, so the theory to which I subscribe is that the negatively-charged precipitation is being held in suspension by the electric force. The precipitates are large enough, and with a high enough terminal velocity, that they would never have developed a concentration in the middle of the cloud -- they should have kept falling, perhaps becoming larger on the way, and the reflectivity within the storm shouldn't show a dense middle. The only force that can account for this concentration is the electric force. And we know that the microscopic aerosols and ice crystals in the anvil have an effective terminal velocity of 0 (within the relevant timeframe). So they're stuck in the air at the top of the cloud, and the buoyancy of that air is capable of holding the weight of the negatively-charged precipitation suspended in the middle of the cloud. The charge separation between the positive anvil and the negative pancake generates the E-field responsible for most of the lightning in the storm (which is a topic unto itself).

As the negatively-charged precipitation is heavier, it tends to fall to the ground, while the positively-charged aerosols and ice crystals in the anvil are left to evaporate (eventually) as the storm breaks up. This is considered to be one of the atmospheric charging mechanisms, responsible for the net positive charge in the ionosphere. Note that if you subscribe to all of the above, you get a chicken-and-egg problem. It was stated that the pre-existing E-field between the ionosphere and the Earth polarizes water molecules, and this encourages molecular aggregation as well as electron transfer in particle collisions, which eventually results in negative charges falling to the Earth, leaving positive charges behind. And that's what creates the pre-existing E-field between the ionosphere and the Earth. So what created the E-field that caused the very first thunderstorm? Another atmospheric charging mechanism is cosmic rays, which liberate electrons, some of which fly out into space, leaving the outer atmosphere positively-charged. There are other possibilities, but as with the charge separation process within thunderstorms, the most accurate answer is probably "all of the above".

So there is a lot that isn't fully understood, and there is plenty of room for speculation, but new advances have to take what is already known into account.

[CharlesChandler]

Reminds me of what the anode tufts look like on the Sun... o.O

I disagree that granules on the Sun are anode tufts, but I do agree that mammatus clouds are anodes, though I'm not actually sure exactly what "tufting" actually is, so I don't know if this is appropriate. Here is an excerpt from my website (http://charles-chandler.org/Geophysics/Tornadoes.php) that presents my hypothesis:

To understand what causes mammatus clouds, we should first consider the context in which they occur. In the late stage of a thunderstorm, the updraft has expired, and downdrafts dominate. At this point, the airflow in the anvil switches direction, from its outward expansion driven by the updraft, to inward contraction toward the void left by the downdrafts at the top of the cloud.

In this context, we can understand the linear organization of the mammatus clouds. While the updraft was still forcing air into the anvil, the flow was turbulent, and long, straight cloud features were not possible. But when the airflow reverses direction, and downdrafts are pulling the anvil back toward the center of the storm, the airflow is laminar, and in this condition, linear structures can emerge.

The next question is: what is responsible for getting the laminar flow to resolve into distinct bands? The quick answer is that nobody knows, but the EMHD model suggests a possibility. We know that the anvil is storing an enormous amount of positive charge, and we know that charged gases have a lower viscosity. So while electrostatic repulsion tends to disperse the charges, in motion the more highly-charged parcels flow faster. So we can expect streams of charged particles flowing through neutral surroundings. The two forces together then result in a series of equally-spaced bands. Electrostatic repulsion limits the amount of charge in each band, and distributes the bands evenly, while the reduction in viscosity organizes the flows.

Then the question is: what is causing the water vapor to condense? Here, again, the quick answer is that nobody knows. The reduction in pressure in the anvil also reduces the temperature, and this encourages condensation. But condensation isn't going to cause a falling parcel of air that would become a mammatus lobe — condensation causes updrafts, due to the release of latent heat. And though the lobes look like drops of water on a ceiling that are getting ready to fall, they do not fall, because such is not their nature. Rather, the lobes simply dissolve after 10~15 minutes.

And here again the EMHD model offers a suggestion. In the reduced pressure after the airflow in the anvil switches direction, we would otherwise expect more condensation in the anvil. But we also know that the anvil is positively-charged. So electrostatic repulsion will prevent the aggregation of water molecules. We also know that there is a powerful electric field between the positively-charged anvil and an induced negative charge in the Earth. This could pull the more highly-charged parcels downward, and there could also be a flow of electrons upward in this field. As depicted in Figure 134, the lines of electric force will approach a positively-charged falling parcel from every direction. Electrons entering the parcel will neutralize the positive charge. Without any electrostatic repulsion, if the air is below the dew point, the water vapor will condense. And the form of this condensation will be spherical. In other words, the lobes are the anodes in an electric field between the ground and the cloud, and the visible aspect of the lobes reveals the arrival of electrons.

Figure 134. Positive charges (green) over a conductor with an induced negative charge (red). The white lines represent the highest field density. Applet by Paul Falstad.

So the possibility is that an electric current flowing upward from the ground enables condensation, especially in the parcels that have the most charge. The condensation process then releases latent heat, and the parcel is sent upward, leaving the hemispherical form at the bottom to simply dissolve.

Now we can look back at the images of this phenomenon, and resolve the remaining anomaly. Intuitively, we would expect the anvil to be opaque with condensation, with the mammatus lobes just being the side of the anvil that is facing us on the ground. But in the images, we can clearly see that there is no condensation above. The condensation is, in fact, a very thin boundary condition. Above the boundary, the air is super-saturated with water vapor that cannot condense because of its charge. At the boundary, electrons from below enable condensation, which falls out of the anvil and evaporates again in the drier air below the anvil. And the parcel that released the condensation is sent back up into the clear air above.

[seasmith]

Charles~

mharratsc wrote:
Reminds me of what the anode tufts look like on the Sun... o.O

I disagree that granules on the Sun are anode tufts, but I do agree that mammatus clouds are anodes

Well both are probably loaded with hydrogen nuclei, but it's harder to see cathode for sun.

The progression, as you lay it out above, seems a very sensible sequence of the Rain, Evap, ESdispersion, Condensation cycle;
and the lobation of "parcel" domains is likely due your : "electric force will approach a positively-falling parcel from every direction".
The cycle powered by, as you say, "..an electric current flowing upward from the ground enables condensation,"
in the circuit that forms, earth>ionosphere, with moist air (and aided by any latent heat).

Rain & dew as 'Glow Mode' of lightning.
Or how the cell nourishes its membrane.

s

[601L1n9FR09]

I have no doubt the updrafts in thunderstorms outstrip terminal velocity of hail stones I am just not sure thermal convection alone is capable of generating the updrafts. I have seen too much assumed and stated as "fact" in my life to take it as read. We call them thermal updrafts and observe them going such and such a speed. Do we know it is due to thermal convection? I mean what kind of experiments can be run? How large would the lab have to be to establish an electrically neutral environment to see precisely how fast a thermal updraft can go? Look, I have less capacity than our friend Sparky in pretty much all aspects (well I can steam video , well, sorta) but this is my observation: I go to my faucet and turn on the water. I run a comb through my hair (and there ain't much hair folks) and hold the comb half an inch or so to one side of the stream. This liquid water in dead free fall diverts from it's formerly vertical drop. In this case, it was toward the comb and the offset was by no means marginal. If the negligible charge on my comb can effect running water in full free fall I can see an atmospheric charge effecting droplets of condensation without straining my strictly limited imagination. Just because we have an explanation (convection only) to explain a phenomena, does not mean it time to stop looking for other explanations. Oh, while I am here, I have seen both non-filamentary clouds in pictures of space and filamentary structures in atmospheric clouds on several scales. Lastly, what gives clouds shape? How can thunderheads have zero viability inside and a foot away there is unlimited visibility just outside? No gradient at all. I mean why does the moisture not simply disperse into the clear sky so conveniently located a foot away in all directions from the cloud anyway? Okay, correct me if I am wrong or I will keep being wrong.

Jay

[mharratsc]

I have to hand it to you, Charles- you have one solid model going on there!

One thing I wanted to ask you about however- you touch on low and mid-altitude electrodynamics, but what about the high-altitude component of the storms? How does the charge equalization we see between the ionosphere and the cloud tops factor in to all of it? o.O

[CharlesChandler]

I have seen too much assumed and stated as "fact" in my life to take it as read.

I totally agree with you there! And you forgot to mention how much tenacity there is, even when it's not even a fact, but just a convenient construct that has some nice properties, but which masks the anomalies, and blinds us to opportunities for break-throughs. So never stop questioning! And you're not necessarily wrong. When we fully understand all of this stuff, then we'll go back and determine who was right and who was wrong. Until then, we just don't know. For now, the best we can do is explain our reasoning, and when we find errors and correct them, we learn, and that's what it's all about.

I have no doubt the updrafts in thunderstorms outstrip terminal velocity of hail stones. I am just not sure thermal convection alone is capable of generating the updrafts.

I certainly agree that in some parts of a thunderstorm, such as between the positively charged anvil and the main negative charge region, the electric force is more powerful than gravity, and is responsible for keeping the negatively charged precipitation suspended inside the storm. But those are specific structures that develop as a consequence of the charge separation process. If you're just talking about what causes the updraft in the first place, you can't invoke the electric force, because the particles aren't charged yet. The air starts out neutrally charged. If it gets cooled to the dew point, the water molecules start condensing, wherein the covalent bonds keeping them together are stronger than the molecular motion that would make them bounce off each other. But this is electron sharing, not electron transfer, and the resultant molecular aggregate is still neutrally charged.

Dr. Gerald Pollack's work was mentioned earlier, and I should provide my opinions here while we're on the subject. I think that he's wrong about the clumps of condensation that we call clouds. When condensation first forms, it is neutrally charged, and to think that a clump of it is manifesting the "like likes like" principle is solving a problem that we don't have, with a mechanism that isn't there. It is true that water particles are the primary negative charge carriers in the storm. (Actually, it would be more true to say that "particles" are the primary negative charge carriers, as individual molecules are not good at hosting a net negative charge, while the electron cloud in a particle can easily hide a few extra electrons per million. So it's water and dust particles that are the negative charge carriers -- because they're particles.) But there's an undistributed middle in the conclusion that all water particles are negatively charged, just because the particles that are negatively charged are almost always water. The main reason for clumps of condensation in clouds is actually just that condensation begets more condensation. It releases latent heat, which causes an updraft. The updraft generates a low pressure below it, and the low pressure encourages condensation. So we can expect condensation to occur in clumps. Eventually the clumps will disperse, due to atmospheric mixing (i.e., wind), not because of electrostatic repulsion.

As concerns the "exclusion zone" (EZ) that Pollack observes in liquid water, I think that he's doing important work, but before he's done, he'll have to identify the actual forces involved. My guess is that hydrophilic substances are hydrophilic because of the dipolar structure of their molecules, and that this polarizes the neighboring water molecules, which then polarize molecules further into the water, essentially creating little polymer chains. The "exclusionary" nature of these chains is then due to the fact that once they set up a lattice, their covalent bonds are stronger than those to the particles getting excluded. In fact, if the microspheres were hydrophilic, they wouldn't be excluded at all, but rather, forcefully embedded in the "EZ". So if you put water up against a hydrophilic substance (such as nafion), you get a dipolar organization in the water, and if there are hydrophobic particles in the water, they'll get forced out, because they have no place in that organization. Call it a liquid crystal if you want, but I don't think that this is a property of water per se, but rather, of any dipolar molecule.

Having said all of that, in a thunderstorm, there IS a charge separation mechanism, and I've been studying the possible effects of the electric charges on the behavior of the storm, which I believe to be quite significant. As I said earlier, there are cases where the electric force is more powerful than gravity, and is therefore a force that needs to be included in the calculations. The greater effect of EM in the storm appears to be due to a reduction in viscosity of charged air. But such effects do not appear in the updraft, as it is neutrally charged.

We call them thermal updrafts and observe them going such and such a speed. Do we know it is due to thermal convection? I mean what kind of experiments can be run? How large would the lab have to be to establish an electrically neutral environment to see precisely how fast a thermal updraft can go?

Some would say that this is a simple question, and easily dismissed, but I won't. First, the simple part. We don't have to create a lab the size of the cloud in order to accurately assess the thermodynamic forces, as we can do small-scale experiments and then scale them up. The other way to go is with math that encapsulates previous experimental results. So we can calculate the thermal buoyancy of the air, and then we can estimate the friction that it will encounter when it rises, and we should be able to predict the speed of the updraft to within a couple of percents. Up to a point, both methods are in full agreement with what nature does in clouds. Immature storms, in the "towering cumulus" stage (where you just have the initial updraft at the very beginning of the storm), are well predicted by thermodynamics.

The reason why it's not a simple question, and cannot be easily dismissed, is that thermodynamic simulations have never successfully resolved into a thunderstorm given the initial conditions. So the speed of the updraft is well predicted just on the basis of the latent heat released by the condensation process. But the organized structure of a thunderstorm (especially the far larger, far better organized structure of a supercell), is fully outside the principles of thermodynamics. This is where I invoke EM effects, such as electric fields overpowering gravity, and altering the viscosity of the air, resulting in the behaviors that thermodynamics cannot predict.

I have seen [...] filamentary structures in atmospheric clouds on several scales.

Filamentary clouds are an interesting topic, and I'm convinced that EM forces are at work. Since the atmosphere is pretty well mixed, condensation forms in clumps, not filaments. As we see in this image, there is a smooth transition from clear air to opaque condensation, and no filaments:



But the wall and tail clouds associated with supercell thunderstorms are famous for their filamentary nature, commonly described as a frayed cotton ball.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wall_cloud

I think that filaments, if present, are evidence of positively charged air that is cool enough for the water vapor to condense, but it won't, because of electrostatic repulsion. Then, electrons flow down from the cloud, neutralizing the positive charges, enabling condensation. The filaments result from the fact that condensation is a better conductor than the gaseous nitrogen, oxygen, and water vapor. So once some of it forms, the current flows through it to the next patch. In other words, the current follows channels just like it does in lightning, but for a very different reason.

[601L1n9FR09]

Charles ,
Thanx for your patience and consideration. I spent a lot of time on your site and am greatly impressed. Not necessarily completely persuaded, but impressed. Oh, I spose I oughtta let you know, I am a catastrophist from the ground up. Gradualism is only what we experience between catastrophes. I will say in regards to your last post that there is still a detail or two I am not convinced is beyond certain presuppositions but you seem willing to consider everything and are careful to not jump to conclusions. I am primarily an observer here and usually resist the urge to post. For the record I am still fairly convinced that EM plays a far greater role in weather at all scales than current convention seems willing to consider.

Prayers and such,

Jay

[webolife]

Thank you, Charles, for very well thought out and presented discussion of electrical interactions in clouds. I want to make sure you don't necessarily attribute to Pollack something that I was responsible for posting. He might explain it differently than me. However I have a question for you regarding neutrality of condensation... is it possible that the charges are balanced yet still separated, but measured thus as neutral? This is to clarify my own thinking of how the "like likes like" actually works.

[CharlesChandler]

For the record I am still fairly convinced that EM plays a far greater role in weather at all scales than current convention seems willing to consider.

There are certainly a lot of unanswered questions. I'm currently mulling over some larger-scale weather factors. I found an unexpected correlation between sunspot cycles and tornado fatalities. I thought to look at fatalities because I figured that it was a more absolute statistic (fatalities are always reported, and are never double-quoted the way tornadoes frequently are). And other data are appearing, such as the CERN "CLOUD" study on cosmic rays. My personal feeling is that upper atmospheric charges are a weak force, and that the significance for thunderstorms isn't that there is a current, but rather that this establishes the fair weather field that is responsible for cloud electrification, through the process described in my post on 2011-07-27, 18:30 (-05). But that's really just a guess.

I want to make sure you don't necessarily attribute to Pollack something that I was responsible for posting.

I was commenting on the YouTube video, but I think your comments were accurate.

regarding neutrality of condensation... is it possible that the charges are balanced yet still separated, but measured thus as neutral? This is to clarify my own thinking of how the "like likes like" actually works.

It all depends on the charge separation mechanism, and there are different theories, but chemically, charge separation doesn't favor condensation, as it introduces electrostatic repulsion. Too much charge on a particle will break it up into smaller pieces (called the Rayleigh limit). So condensation and charge separation are definitely not coupled, and that's why I questioned Pollack's generic statement about condensation always being charged.

Now we just have to see what CERN is saying about the effect of cosmic rays on the appearance of condensation in clouds.

[jjohnson]

Charles, it's always such a pleasure to read your posts. Thanks for participating here on this forum.

I agree that it is more than just "bad form" to look at phenomena from just a gravity-driven or just an EM-driven perspective. I work hard to promote the idea that we exist in a continuum, causal, universe, and the forces which dominate at long distances (electromagnetic and gravity) always do so together, in various fractions of dominance.

Where we live, the conditions are such that, in the vast majority of cases, gravity-driven effects predominate. In some obvious cases, electromagnetic effects will and do dominate. Often, the two forces coexist and which dominates what part of what we observe can vary in a rich tapestry of interactions. Weather is one of those phenomena. Your explanations and hypotheses of how it works together is plausible, and I must say it is interesting to have seen it evolve intelligently in the short time we've had you present and talking with us. Your web site is excellent, too, I'd like to add, and encourage others to visit.

In cosmic conditions at scales larger than planets, EM forces tend to be able to control a lot of what goes on, but even when gravity forces contribute a small fraction to the vector descriptions of what's happening, they never go away. Small and overwhelmed? Sure, sometimes, but disappear? Not so long as there is a milligram of mass in the Universe. The fact that these two long-range forces coexist, and share a lot of characteristics such as their field of influence and propagation speed etc. could lead one to believe that there is unification possible, and, as Sansbury, Thornhill and many others speculate, may be but different aspects of a single underlying EMG force at work.

Please do continue with these weather posts. Your perspective and vision is one more extremely valuable link that helps bind these new paradigms together, and will help gain traction in how science views and interprets what is going on around and within us all.

Jim

[beekeeper]

greetings, the attached photo was taken last summerin YK NWT. I have read on this site that electricity may plays a major role in the formation of huricanes. The shape of this lightning strike totally reminds me of a huricnane formation, without the winds and destruction. Just looking for some comments from anyone finding this interesting. regards Beekeeper

[601L1n9FR09]

Is this an electric cloud or what?
http://photo.net/photodb/photo?photo_id ... ize=lg[url][/url]