Electric Clouds

[webolife]

Starbiter,
I know we rib each other a lot on these threads, but I have to ask, have you ever read anything about meteorology?
Cold air and warm air are always relative to each other... A cold front occurs when a colder and/or drier air mass overtakes a warmer and/or moister air mass. The colder denser air literally bulldozes the warmer less dense air upward, creating cumulus or cumulonimbus clouds. So if the temperature differential is great enough a cold front may result in thunderstorm activity. A common happening in the summertime, this colder drier air results in generally fairer weather, which is why cumulus clouds are referred to as "fair weather" clouds. A warm front occurs when a warmer and/or moister air mass overtakes a colder/drier air mass. Being less dense it slides up overtop the colder air, creating stratus type clouds. We get this a lot around Seattle since our weather comes from the Pacific to the west. In short, it's simple convection: your low pressure regions occur in connection with frontal systems, where warm air is being displaced upwards and your high pressure regions occur where colder/drier/denser air is falling into the place left by the rising air. No electrical gradient is required to explain this, and it can be demonstrated on your kitchen table with a terrarium, some water, some ice [dry ice is nice]. The additional factor in earthscale weather is the atmospheric pressure gradient, which causes adiabatic/barometric thermodynamic effects on water vapor.

[starbiter]

Hola Webo: I've lived in a lot of tropical, water front, and mountainside cities. I understand temperature plays a role in meteorology. I worked for a newspaper named the Daily Breeze. There was a daily breeze. I think it was hot air over the desert pulling in cool air over the pacific. It's a similar situation in Miami, with heat in the Everglades.

I've been learning about the EU since 1997, thanks to Wal Thornhill, and the the links he provided to Dr Scott, and Dr. Peratt. There are many other plasma pioneers in the group. Some i've been honored to visit. They have a different explanation than yours. You are presenting mainstream meteorology on the Thunderbolts Forum, Planetary Science Thread. You seem frustrated when the forum members don't listen to you.

Webo,
[...]
OMG, aren't you guys reading anything Aveo and I are saying? Clouds do not defy gravity in any way shape or form!
If Velikovsky said they do, he was just plain wrong here! Neither of us have denied that there is electricity in the atmosphere, just that it is not counteracting gravity in some way to keep clouds afloat. That idea borders on the ridiculous! Just what part of our explanations aren't you understanding?

me again,
Aren't you reading the EU version? Water molecules are dipoles! I feel compelled to present/defend the "bordering on the ridiculous" EU version on the EU Forum.

You don't deny electricity in the atmosphere, you just claim it does nothing but heat.

your friend, michael

[webolife]

I plead Occam's Razor.
I like the EU forum, been posting for a few years, don't agree with all the EU points, and am here to learn, as well as to challenge claims that don't seem to take into full account standard knowledge. If I can demonstrate an SM point on my kitchen table, but others cannot demonstrate theirs in a lab setting, I conclude that the SM abides for a while longer... isn't this what PC-ers claim and expect for the "scalability" of plasma phenomena from lab to galactic order? Is not this the true strength behind the Electric Sun hypothesis? Electricity has been undervalued for all the great tricks it plays in nature, and I do appreciate that. I have some other "tricks" that folks challenge me about, and I appreciate that as well. Water's polarity serves it well, but there is no indisputable correlation between the electromagnetic field of the earth and storm systems or cloud patterns, so I will continue to dispute.

[Aardwolf]

Webolife,

Do you have an explanantion how mercury vapour could rise from the surface of liquid mercury against the force of gravity?

[webolife]

As is the case for all vapors, the "escape velocity" [kinetic energy] that characterizes the [evaporation] phase change [from a liquid] carries the molecules away from their bound state in the liquid form [or solid, in the case of sublimation]. Thermodynamics, specifically entropy, is the operant mechanism.

[Aardwolf]

As is the case for all vapors, the "escape velocity" [kinetic energy] that characterizes the [evaporation] phase change [from a liquid] carries the molecules away from their bound state in the liquid form [or solid, in the case of sublimation]. Thermodynamics, specifically entropy, is the operant mechanism.

Indeed. But what stops them falling straight back down to the surface?

[webolife]

Can you tell me about the kinetic energy of the surrounding particles? This will relate to the relative density of the mercury vapor with respect to the surrounding air... it's not the mass of individual particles that determines their interaction with their neighbors, but their energy. Can you tell me how charge equalization is happening between the Hg vapor molecules and the surrounding particles? Or is your Hg vapor occurring in a vacuum tube? Is there an EMF present to excite the molecules?

[Aardwolf]

Can you tell me about the kinetic energy of the surrounding particles? This will relate to the relative density of the mercury vapor with respect to the surrounding air... it's not the mass of individual particles that determines their interaction with their neighbors, but their energy. Can you tell me how charge equalization is happening between the Hg vapor molecules and the surrounding particles? Or is your Hg vapor occurring in a vacuum tube? Is there an EMF present to excite the molecules?

How will any of this provide an answer to why they do not return to the surface once the kinetic energy used for escape from the liquid Hg is overcome by gravity? The kinetic energy of the surrounding particles should have a random effect on the movement of the Hg particles. They should not maintain the levitation of the particles against the pull of gravity. There must be a force acting on the Hg particles in opposition to gravity. There's no wind as it can happen in a sealed room and no thermal uplift because everthing is at the same room temperature, so what force keeps the particles in the air against the pull of gravity?

[webolife]

If the Hg vapor molecules have greater KE, they will be relatively more "expanded" than the surrounding gases and remain in suspension or rise, regardless of whether they are individually "heavier" than the surrounding air. What keeps a jumbo jet from falling to earth? It's KE, pure and simple. Hg molecules are much less massive than a 747.
There may be electricity involved, as I mentioned earlier regarding the nature of Brownian motion, but what it is doing is not an electrical counteraction against gravity. The relative strength of gravity when it comes to vapor molecules is in fact negligible.

[Aardwolf]

If the Hg vapor molecules have greater KE, they will be relatively more "expanded" than the surrounding gases and remain in suspension or rise, regardless of whether they are individually "heavier" than the surrounding air.

Initially when they escape the liquid yes, but gravity is continually pulling against that KE which should reduce it to zero and then it should pull it down. What is continualy providing the KE to avoid this outcome?

What keeps a jumbo jet from falling to earth? It's KE, pure and simple.

Really? I though it was chemical energy continually converting to KE. Next time you are on a plane, just after take off, explain to the captain he can safely turn the engines off as physics explains that the initial KE provided is sufficient to complete the journey. Let me know his answer.

Hg molecules are much less massive than a 747. There may be electricity involved, as I mentioned earlier regarding the nature of Brownian motion, but what it is doing is not an electrical counteraction against gravity. The relative strength of gravity when it comes to vapor molecules is in fact negligible.

Then explain exactly what is counteracting the gravity because the perpetual KE you suggested in the example doesn't make sense. Also, although you say the relative strength of gravity is negligible on the Hg molecules, it's still roughly 14 times less negligible than the surrounding air its suspended in.

[webolife]

I'm afraid you've lost me. I never suggested that somehow KE is self-perpetuating. Whatever conditions are evaporating the Hg are ongoing however, and supplying the necessary energies for the vapor state. Regardless of the specifics of the energy supply, the 747 stays in the air despite being billions of time heavier than the surrounding air molecules, and the last I heard they didn't create the machine to somehow tap into a counter-to-gravity atmospheric electric field in order to stay afloat.

[Aardwolf]

I'm afraid you've lost me. I never suggested that somehow KE is self-perpetuating. Whatever conditions are evaporating the Hg are ongoing however, and supplying the necessary energies for the vapor state.

Particle collisions within the liquid Hg driven by random thermal motion provide the KE, and where the molecules are close to the surface they may have enough energy to phase change and escape. This part is uncontroversial but it's what happens after the molecule has left I am concerned about. It is no longer in contact with the energies that converted it into a vapour state. What supplies the continued energy to the particle from now on? It cant be KE because that will very quickly be overwhelmed by gravity and it obviously can't be the thermal motion of the liquid anymore.

Regardless of the specifics of the energy supply, the 747 stays in the air despite being billions of time heavier than the surrounding air molecules, and the last I heard they didn't create the machine to somehow tap into a counter-to-gravity atmospheric electric field in order to stay afloat.

Unfortunatley we do need to be specific about the energy supply because thats the whole point of this discussion. Where does the particle get it's continued energy to overcome the pull of gravity. Your plane anaolgy is ridiculous because we know the plane carries its own energy supply for conversion to whatever flight theory you subscribe to, unlike the Hg particles we are discussing which need a continuous external source. What's the source?

[webolife]

I'm definitely seeing this differently than you... the "external source" of the Hg's energy, while it may have some electrical facet, is simply the temperature of the system that is containing it. That temperature, whatever it is caused by [being in a warm room, receiving radiant energy from___?, or whatever!], is sufficient to vaporize some of your liquid Hg and in doing so elevating its KE to an escape velocity... since when do we need any additional mechanism to explain why all air molecules don't just fall to the ground under the influence of gravity, as Aristotle so famously protested? If you continue to avoid the 747 analogy, it will be difficult for you to see what I'm trying to say. Other readers of my posts throughout this forum will be amused at our discussion, as I am a strong supporter of operant fields concepts; I simply think you are blaming electric fields for something that is not their fault!
"It's not my fault!" -- Hans Solo, aboard the Millenium Falcon.

[jjohnson]

Webo, I'm afraid I'm with you, more or less, on this discussion. When you turn the heat off under a pan of H2O or Hg, everything starts cooling down. Water and mercury in the gas state will condense back to a liquid state as their thermal collisions become less violent (KE is decreasing, overall) and they will revert to liquid behavior. As long as ionization energy is not reached or exceeded, the molecules will remain neutral in either state. Dipole moments due to having differing polarities at a bound distance from each other could result in a torque on a molecule, but that does not change its kinetic energy. As there are no magnetic or electric fields postulated in this discussion, the neutral particles down here in Earth's gravity well will pretty much follow normal gas laws and gravity-dominated behavior so far as I can tell. This is simple thermodynamics.

What happens to a liquid out of a gravity field, or in orbit in a microgravity or freefall field, is qualitatively different between the gas and liquid states. If in a closed container, the gas will still expand to fill the container, since that is, for a given temperature, its lowest energy state. A liquid, however, contracts into spherical blobs controlled more by its particular surface tension than gravity, or possibly Van de Waal's forces if it attaches to a wall of the container.

I have not observed or read of experiments where astronauts may have opened a container of water or mercury to space, so anything I ventured to say about that case would be conjectural. At best. Pressure drops quickly to almost zero, and thermal temperature is removed from the environment of the liquid. Any gases dissolved in the liquid might froth out quickly (as in explosively) and the liquid would be pushed aside as the gases departed toward the lowest nearby surface. The liquid phase might freeze quickly into the solid phase as kinetic energy is radiated away, leaving a collection of ice crystals of various sizes and shapes. If anyone's seen such experiments, I'd like to see them too or read the results.

The atmosphere at the altitude of the tops of thunderstorms (30,000 to 60,000 feet) has a pressure a small fraction that at sea level, but it still has thermal motion and kinetic energy, ostensibly enough that high-drag shapes like snowflakes or light clumps of water crystals could be kept aloft almost indefinitely. Like a skydiver, even an ice crystal has a terminal velocity due to drag, beyond which gravity cannot accelerate it further. If the upwelling air currents in the vicinity of and within cumulus and cumulonimbus cloud formations have vertical vectors greater than the downward terminal velocity of the matter in clouds, that matter will rise. Even hailstones can rise, given the vertical velocities sometimes encountered in more powerful storms. Hailstones have been observed to be ejected vertically and even laterally out of thunderstorms (pilots are warned of this and know the visual signs, in daylight), and sectioning them has revealed that some hailstones may make repeated trips up and down inside a storm, adding frozen-on layers of ice like an onion.

It is an interesting prediction of EU theory that air currents in a cloud may be in part electrically driven, but so far there hasn't been a lot or research on this causative effect to substantiate it. There was a long blog last year, I think, on the causes of tornadoes and waterspouts in the context of EU theory. Might look that one up.

[starbiter]

Hello Jim and Webo: Can you explain why hot high pressure areas seem to push down and cold low pressure areas seem to go up.

michael