ready for the weather

The Sprites and Elves are coming!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

the ionosphere and the surface of the earth create a giant capacitor that stores an electrical charge. This system holds a conservation of charge and during fair weather, the current flows from the ionosphere to the ground, and during thunderstorms, the charge from the ground gets built up on the top of the thunderstorm, which sparks back to the ionosphere via phenomenon known as Red Sprites and Blue Jets. check them out, they are relatively new (discovered in 1990) and are huge electrical discharges that span distances of over 60km. They deliver tens of coulombs of charge via many unknown mechanisms. one of the leading theories is the runaway relatavistic electrons, where electrons above a certian energy threshold will continously gain momentum as they shoot through the field set up between the thunderstorm and the ionosphere. there are also gamma ray bursts quite like these sprites associated with thunderstorms, but the electrons in these bursts have far more energy and thus are not radiated in the visible spectrum, but produce high energy light that can be detected. so... thunderstorms are cool. by the way, the "blue notes" which are the minor 3rd and minor 7th sound best when they are bent... enjoy your lightning when you get it, and dont forget that relatavistic electrons expirience time much slower than we do.

Eric Oij
Atmospheric Physics Specialist