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ATMOSPHERIC ELECTRICITY ______________________________________________________________________________

1 Mr.B.SRIKANTH 2 Mr.S.RAJSHEKHAR

EE0113

Abstract:
Owing to the somewhat explosive development of the science of atmospheric electricity during the past decade this article covers a broad field of activity. The article begins with a description and discussion of the work that has been performed to understand the electrical properties of the basic materials involved in generating processes in the atmosphere. The aspects covered in this paper are the fair-weather conditions, cluster ions concept, spherical capacitor theory, and the major applications of atmospheric electricity. Even the Fundamental problem of atmospheric electricity and its solution have been dealt with. The sections covered also include the electrification of the upper atmosphere and space, and a consideration of the global electrical circuit and its related electrical `balance sheet'.

Keywords:
Cluster-ion concept, Spherical capacitor theory, Electrical balance sheet, Global electrical circuit.

Conclusion:
It would be hard to build an array of lighting rods to capture periodic thunderstorm electricity. The biggest hurdle would really be creating power plant infrastructure that could survive the harsh surges created by lightning strikes, but even that seems possible with current technology and materials. Electrical and building design engineers could come up with an innovative way to make it work. Specially designed buffer/insulation and transformer materials could be used to safely capture and harness the massive amounts of electricity generated during a lighting strike, and transfer it to large storage device for later use.

1. III/ IV B.Tech D.V.R College of Engg. srikanth613@yahoo.com

2. III/ IV B.Tech D.V.R College of Engg raju644@yahoo.com

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What is Atmospheric Electricity?

Introduction:
Benjamin Franklin was the first to design an experiment to prove the electrical nature of lightning. In July 1750, Franklin proposed that electricity could be drawn from a cloud by a tall metal pole. If the pole was insulated from ground, and an observer brought a grounded wire held by an Isulating wax handle near the pole, then a spark would jump from the pole to the wire when an electrified cloud was nearby. If this was the case, it would be proved that the clouds were electrically charged and, consequently, that lightning was also an electrical phenomenon. In June 1752, Franklin conducted another experiment with the same proposal, his famous experiment using a kite. Instead of use a metal pole he used a kite, since it could reach a greater elevation than the pole and could be flown anywhere. One more time sparks jumped from a key tied to the bottom of the kite string to his hands. This proved that lightning was also an electrical phenomenon.

Atmospheric electricity abounds in the environment; some traces of it are found less than four feet from the surface of the earth, but on attaining greater height it becomes more apparent. It was only after the discovery of the electricity in the early 1700s that the electrical nature of the earths atmosphere begun to be revealed. In 1708, William Wall, watching the spark of a discharge from a charged piece of amber, observed that it similar to lightning. Around the middle of the century, after the discovery of the first electrical properties of matter, it became evident that lightning should be a form of electricity associated in some way with thunderstorms. Atmospheric electricity is the regular diurnal(daily) variations of the Earth's atmospheric electromagnetic network. Its the study of electric charges and currents in the atmosphere. Fossils suggest that the terrestrial

Fair Weather Condition:

L. G. Lemonnier discovered that even when there are no clouds, the so-called fair weather condition, a weak electrification exists in the atmosphere. He also found some evidence that the electrification varied from night to day. In 1775, G. Beccaria confirmed the existence of a diurnal variation in the fair weather electrification and determined that the polarity of the charge in the atmosphere in fair weather condition was positive and that it reversed to negative when thunderstorms were nearby.

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Atmospheric layers:

temperature and water vapor distributions. Such influence is dominated by the effects of turbulence. The layer in which this influence is felt is called the planetary boundary layer or exchange layer. The depth of this layer is highly variable, ranging from tens of meters to 3 km above the ground.

Cluster ions Concept:

The lower and middle atmosphere is weak conductors due to the presence of trace concentrations of ions. Ions are created by ionization of the neutral molecules of air, generally nitrogen and oxygen, by primary and secondary cosmic rays, and by particles and radiation produced by decay of radioactive substances in the soil, like uranium and thorium, and in the air, like the gas radon. As a result of the ionization of the molecules, free electrons and positive ions, in general singly charged, are created. The electrons are, then, quickly attached to other neutral molecules to produce negative ions. The production of ions by cosmic rays varies with altitude and latitude. The production of ions due to the decay of radioactive substances depends on the soil characteristics. In particular, in the oceans it is several orders of magnitude smaller than in the continents. In general, the average ionization (ionpair production) rate over the continent due to radioactive substances is predominant on that due to cosmic rays below 1 km. Above 1 km, the ionization rate is dominated by the cosmic ray source. The ionization rate is also sensitive to meteorological conditions, and geomagnetic and solar activity. Occasionally, the ionization created by energetic particles during times of high geomagnetic and solar activity can dominate that produced by cosmic rays above 20 km. Also, the 11-year solar sunspot cycle produces a variation in the ionization rate in the atmosphere. The variation becomes more pronounced with increasing height or geomagnetic latitude. After the ions are formed, they react with neutral molecules and attach to water molecules from the water vapor always present in the atmosphere, forming cluster ions. These cluster ions are relatively stable, and constitute most of the

Relationship of the atmosphere and ionosphere The conductivity of the atmosphere increases exponentially with altitude. The amplitudes of the electric and magnetic components depend on season, latitude, and height above the sea level. The greater the altitude the more atmospheric electricity abounds. The exosphere is the uppermost layer of the atmosphere and is estimated to be 500 km to 1000 km above the Earth's surface, and its upper boundary at about 10,000 km. The thermosphere (upper atmosphere) is the layer of the Earth's atmosphere directly above the mesosphere and directly below the exosphere. Within this layer, ultraviolet radiation causes ionization. The mesosphere (middle atmosphere) is the layer of the Earth's atmosphere that is directly above the stratosphere and directly below the thermosphere. The mesosphere is located about 50-80/85km above Earth's surface. The stratosphere (middle atmosphere) is a layer of Earth's atmosphere that is stratified in temperature and is situated between about 10 km and 50 km altitude above the surface at moderate latitudes, while at the poles it starts at about 8 km altitude. The stratosphere sits directly above the troposphere and directly below the mesosphere. The troposphere (lower atmosphere) is the densest layer of the atmosphere. The presence of the earths surface influences the concentration of ions, aerosols and radioactive particles, through its control over the wind,

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ions of molecular size, also called small ions. Examples of such ions are H3O+ (H2O) and O2(H2O)n. When small ions attach to aerosol particles, they form large ions. During steady state conditions, the concentration of small ions in a given time and place is a result of the balance between the production (ionization rate) and destruction of ions. Small ions are destroyed by recombination between them and by attachment to large ions and aerosol particles. The total average concentration of small ions over the continents as over the oceans is roughly the same and of the order of 1000 cm-3, even though the ionization rate is smaller over the oceans due to the absence of radioactive elements. This fact, however, is compensated by the smaller loss rate due to the lower aerosol concentration. There are more positive small ions than negative ones, and the difference produces a net positive charge in the atmosphere. The existence of a net positive charge near the earths surface implies that additional processes of ion production should exist, since the ionization process produces equal concentrations of negative and positive ions.

microscopic mechanism is not yet well known). Convection in the thundercloud carries the ice crystals to the cloud top, the heavier graupels staying in the mid-cloud: a macroscopic dipole structure forms. By radiation ionization Cosmic and radioactive radiation ionize air, and equal numbers of molecular-size positive and negative small ions are formed; air becomes (weakly) electrically conductive. Small ions are also attached to airborne dust (aerosol), which thus regularizes the number of small ions. By collision ionization Lightning and other discharges in the thundercloud ionize air temporarily into electrically conducting channels.

Outer space and near space:

Charge Separation:
Atmospheric electricity involves phenomena which are connected with the separation of electric charges in the sub-ionospheric atmosphere (below about 100 km height). In the ionosphere and magnetosphere there occur strong electric currents originating directly from the solar-terrestrial interaction; in the lower atmosphere, there flows a much weaker electric current in the so-called global circuit, which is maintained by the thunderstorm activity. Charge separation takes place in three ways: Thermodynamically In a thundercloud, small ice crystals collide with rime-growing graupels; the crystals gain positive charge, the graupels negative (the

Electric currents created in sunward ionosphere. In outer space, the magnetopause flows along the boundary between the region around an astronomical object (called the "magnetosphere") and surrounding plasma, in which electric phenomena are dominated or organized by this magnetic field. Earth is surrounded by a magnetosphere, as are the magnetized planets Jupiter, Saturn, Uranus and Neptune. Mercury is magnetized, but too weakly to trap plasma. Mars has patchy surface magnetization. The magnetosphere is the location where the outward magnetic pressure of

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the Earth's magnetic field is counterbalanced by the solar wind, a plasma.

The discovery of the fair weather circuit followed Ben Franklin's demonstration that lightning is caused by electricity. Later experimenters showed that clear, calm air carries an electrical current which, it turns out is the return path for the electrical display we know as lightning.

Most of solar particles are deflected to either side of the magnetopause, much like water is deflected before the bow of a ship. However, some particles become trapped within the Earth's magnetic field and form radiation belts.

Atmospheric electricity is like a massive photographic flash. An electrical charge is built up, a switch is closed, and electrons barge across a gas, ionizing it and producing light. But a flash is a complete circuit. In the case of the Earth, the atmosphere completes the circuit. The thundercloud charge centres, accumulating tens of coulombs of electricity, are discharged mainly by lightning: cloud flashes (most abundant) cause mutual neutralization of the centers; the lower centre is also discharged to the ground - by negative ground flashes - and charges up the earth (the positive centre is discharged similarly, but by a smaller amount). An excess charge will be left in the upper positive centre, and it leaks by conduction to the surrounding air, about one ampere per thunderstorm cell. Because of the exponentially increasing conductivity, most of this leak current is guided to the ionosphere, where it is distributed over the globe and charges the upper atmosphere to a potential of about 300 kV with respect to the ground. This "ionospheric potential" maintains the so-called fair-weather current, whose density is about 2 pA/m2 (Pico amperes per square meter). According to Ohm's law, the fair-weather current density and the electric conductivity are associated with a downward electric field, about 100 V/m near the ground. The number of simultaneously active thunder cells ("thunderstorms") over the globe is about 1000-2000, so the whole circuit carries a current of about 1000 amperes.

Photoionization:
Photoionization is the physical process in which an incident photon ejects one or more electrons from an atom, ion or molecule. The ejected electrons, known as photoelectrons, carry information about their pre-ionized states. For example, a single electron can have a kinetic energy equal to the energy of the incident photon minus the electron binding energy of the state it left. Photons with energies less than the electron binding energy may be absorbed or scattered but will not photoionise the atom or ion.

Fair-weather atmospheric electricity:

Fair weather electricity deals with the electric field and the electrical current in the atmosphere, and the conductivity of the air.

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Why does not the (fair-weather) atmospheric electric field cause a shock of 200 V to a standing human? Because the human is grounded in practice; the poorly conducting air cannot charge up a grounded object. Below a thundercloud, where the ground-level electric field may be tens of kV/m, the situation is different - but then the threat comes from a lightning strike.

the average field shows seasonal variations with maximum values in the spring and summer in the Northern Hemisphere, reflecting the fact that there is more thunderstorms in these seasons in the Northern Hemisphere than in the same seasons in the Southern Hemisphere. This, in turn, is a result of the fact that there is more land in the Northern Hemisphere.

Carnegie Curve:

Fundamental problem of atmospheric electricity:

In 1804, P. Erman, suggested for the first time that the earth should be negatively charged. In 1860, Lord Kelvin put forward the argument that positive charges must exist in the atmosphere to explain the electrification in fair weather. In 1785, C. A. Coulomb discovered that the air is conductive, observing that a well insulated conductor exposed to air gradually loses its charge. It was then estimated that the earth would lose almost all of its charge to the conductive atmosphere in less than an hour unless the supply were replenished. This raised what has become known as the fundamental problem of atmospheric electricity, that is, how the earths negative charge is maintained.

The fair weather electric field presents diurnal and seasonal variations. The typical diurnal variation of the fair weather electric field as a function of universal time was first clearly identified by the measurements on the research vessel Carnegie in the 1920s. The so-called Carnegie curve is a result of hourly values of the electric field averaged over many days. The Carnegie curve is very difficult to reproduce at land stations due to local processes such as convection currents and aerosol variations. In general, fluctuations in space charge density associated with these processes within the planetary boundary layer have an effect on electric field roughly comparable in magnitude to that of the Carnegie curve. If local variations at land stations are removed by averaging processes, the electric field on the ground indeed shows a universal time dependence similar to that of the Carnegie curve. The fair weather electric field also shows a seasonal variation. Even though the overall pattern appears much the same of the universal time variation, there are small seasonal differences in the hour of maximum field intensity, indicating changes in the longitude of maximum thunderstorm activity. Also,

Solution:
The first attempt to solve this problem was suggested by C. T. R. Wilson in 1920. Wilson developed the hypothesis, known as the spherical capacitor theory that the earths surface and an equipotential layer at some height must behave like plates of a spherical capacitor. The equipotential layer was firstly termed electrosphere and was supposed to be somewhere between 40 and 60 km. Later, it was considered to be located coincident with the ionosphere.

Applications:
1. Application in high energy cosmic ray air shower detection:

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Near ground atmospheric electricity was studied experimentally. The main objective was to gain more understanding of this particular aspect of atmospheric phenomena, while testing the possible application to cosmic ray research. The results in atmospheric electricity show that there are certain patterns in ion grouping such as the size and lifetime. The average lifetime of ion group is 0.7 seconds and the average size is about 10 meters at our experimental site. Ultrahigh energy cosmic ray air showers should create sizable slow atmospheric electric pulses according to theoretical calculations. Preliminary studies on air showers with total particle number N equal or greater than 105 (1015 eV) have yielded strong evidence that slow atmospheric current pulses are associated with air showers. The theory and the experiment agree with each other fairly well when averaged over large numbers of events. With the current experimental arrangement, when the air shower exceeds a certain size, the system response saturates. Therefore it is extremely desirable in future research that the counter array be designed for a much higher threshold level, since this prototype experiment indicates that interesting data would be obtained. Another reason for further experimental research being directed toward ultrahigh energy, and higher, is to establish a calibration of the slow atmospheric electric signals generated by cosmic rays as a function of primary cosmic ray energy and core location. This type of slow atmospheric electric signal, if fully understood and calibrated, offers a new and potentially less expensive technique to observe ultrahigh energy cosmic ray events, which hold some fundamental keys to the knowledge of the universe on a large scale.

2. Plant

Lighting

Harnessing

Power

This concept is perhaps not as impractical as it once was. The main limiting factor of implementing a lightning capturing scheme such as this was the inability to be able to store large amounts of electricity for later use. However, new Utility Scale Battery technology or other energy storage technologies such as Flywheels or Capacitors could be used to store the electricity captured from lightning in massive quantities, for later grid use. Obviously, a lightning capturing power plant would only be practical in regions with frequent thunderstorms, such as Florida.

References:
[1]The Atmospheric Electricity Journal by Basil Ferdinand [2]Phenomena in Environmental Electricity by Reinhold Reiter

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