The Electrical Nature of Storms [Hardcover]

Donald R. MacGorman (Author), W. David Rust (Author)

Book Description

ISBN-10: 0195073371 | ISBN-13: 978-0195073379 | Publication Date: March 12, 1998 | Edition: 1

Rapid progress during the last twenty years has created a host of new technologies for studying electrical storms, including lightning mapping systems, new radars, satellite sensors, and new ways of measuring electric field and particle charge. This book explains how these advances have revolutionized our understanding. The books provides substantial background material, making it accessible to a broad scientific audience.

Editorial Reviews

Review

"Lightning is among the nation's worst weather hazards, yet even today the processes that electrify clouds are not completely understood. Together, MacGorman and Rust have spent more than 50 years total in research on lightning and storm electricity at the NOAA National Severe Storms Laboratory, and they have been teaching a graduate course on these topics at the University of Oklahoma for more than a decade. This book represents their attempt to condense an enormous body of literature on the electrical nature of storms into a single volume textbook, something that has been sorely needed for some time. In many ways, this is the right book, by the right people, at the right place, at the right time. . . . The book is clearly the best compilation of material on storm electricity that exists today. It can be used either as a textbook or as a reference work by specialists and nonspecialists alike."--E. Philip Krider in the Bulletin of the American Meteorological Society

About the Author

Donald MacGorman and W. David Rust are both at the National Severe Storms Laboratory.

Product Details

• Hardcover: 432 pages
• Publisher: Oxford University Press, USA; 1 edition (March 12, 1998)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0195073371
• ISBN-13: 978-0195073379
• Product Dimensions: 10.2 x 7.2 x 1.1 inches
• Shipping Weight: 2.4 pounds (View shipping rates and policies)
• Average Customer Review: 3.0 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (1 customer review)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #1,063,644 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

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2 of 17 people found the following review helpful:

3.0 out of 5 stars Part of the Problem, April 3, 2004

By 

Alyn Miller (Medway MA USA) - See all my reviews

This review is from: The Electrical Nature of Storms (Hardcover)

The book, THE ELECTRICAL NATURE of STORMS, appears oblivious to interpretation of simple evidence that the earth is negatively charged. (It would be most unlikely for the sun to leave us with a perfect balance, with thermionic emission, solar wind, etc.) Such comprehension would then suggest how electrons leach their way down from the ionosphere as part of negatively charged ions to produce the prevailing lightning to ground that remains uncontested. These ions cluster up during the condensation of moisture and continue to intensify in density as raindrops combine because of their confinement to raindrop surface areas. This sometimes raises high voltages sufficient for thunderbolt production, using energy tapped from convectional forces of storms. Note that new ion production is definitely not required for lightning to be formed. How can experts so presume to explain a technology without mastering the bottom line? Not to kill the messenger: The authors did not create the admittedly flawed technology, and may have been simply reporting it.

With respect to the book: It is suggested here that little more need be spent speculating how storms might proceed to manufacture ionic material (Ch 3, Ch 4): The violent winds have all they can do to spawn sufficient high voltage from existing raw materials before the game is all over. The fact that the vertical mileage embraced by a thunderstorm covers broad temperature ranges does not necessarily establish temperature as a major player in lightning formation (Ch 3). The capacitance between solid/liquid earth and the ionosphere has nothing to do with sustained dc current in the global electrical circuit (Ch 1). Positively charged clouds are no mystery to the casual electronics technician (Ch 3): A good thunderbolt or so from a negatively charged cloud can easily produce a good one by flywheel effect aka inductive kick. An electron in air, being pulled or pushed by other charges, will travel: Conductance be damned (Ch 1).

Contemplate the Faraday cage, in its static state, and in its dynamic formative state. Overcome the subconscious kink that readily supposes repulsive force would alienate all free electrons from each other forever. Earth nets them into an array at the edge of space where they nab molecules that ballast them for descent back into our atmosphere. Scattered ions of moisture are gathered together during rain formation absorbing wind energy that accounts for the consequential increased potentials of static electricity.

The bottom line: The fair weather current; upward negative current flow of some 2 picoamps per square meter is that simple evidence of negative earth charge as mentioned above. All agree that prevailing thunderbolts bring electrons to ground (they strike earth all of the time). Naturally, these electrons go back up to complete the circuit. Tell your weatherman that this does not require a positive sky. Electrons always travel toward the cathode (negative terminal) inside a power supply! Those electrons are already almost home within the radius of the ionosphere as they emerge. Electrons above push back at them, but not as hard as the greater sky below/behind (ignore the solid earth for now). The electrons above push less against our fair weather electron than all those behind it. For that reason, a positive ionosphere would call an electron down to the center (keep ignoring solid earth) where attractions would balance out. Hence, we have a dynamic Faraday cage. Our electron needn't shun the journey, none of those already up there did.

Here is a tip of the hat to the profound tome under discussion for all its fine detail, but connecting the dots just didn?t get me to where they were going. Methinks they chopped the chicken feathers too fine to ever get them put back together again. Where it is here affirmed that the endothermic kernel of lightning formation is compression of like charges, THE ELECTRICAL NATURE of STORMS professes separation of opposite charges for such conversion. What do they do for an encore? The separation concept leads to dispersal (and early termination) of charged particles without a shot at concatenation, whereas the necessary convergence of energy and reiterations of the process are conspicuous advantages of the compression theory. Nevertheless, there is strong reason to believe that our taxes support pursuit of false doctrine conveyed in this book. The writer hereby makes an appeal for thinking people to enlighten our government on this matter. The National Science Foundation apparently faults my theory on the basis of its noncompliance with doctrine from THE ELECTRICAL NATURE of STORMS. Another thing, I hate the pathetic perennial disclaimer that scientists cannot agree on what causes lightning. Show your kids the truth I bring you here. It took me 72 years to stumble upon it!

Meteorologists believe that some awful big voltage must be required to make lightning, and little raindrops can't get that charged up. They (the shy weathermen) won't come out to argue, but if you see one of those guys, explain to him that when a raindrop explodes (hits the Rayleigh limit), its skinful of charged particles present opposing squirts of plasma that short out neighboring raindrops of similar charge, and a lightning stroke is born. Successive resulting strokes can work their way in any direction to zig zag a complete thunderbolt path. The initial stroke might be near the ground or half way up the final current path.