Extreme Weather a Function of Cosmic Dielectrics?

[CrackSmokeRepublican]

Keep an eye on the Hurricanes going North and Mossad  Agents in the mall... Hurricanes can be turned into weapons... --CSR

Extreme Weather a Function of Cosmic Dielectrics?

Paul Noel asserts that severe storms "are an electromagnetic effects of the plasma fields surrounding the solar system. These are what make sun spots as well. The driver is electrical. The mechanism is primarily capacitant and is based on dielectric." This is why opposite extremes appear at the same time on the planet.

While Russia is experiencing its worst heat wave in recorded history, Brazil is freezing.

 
Preface by Sterling D. Allan
Pure Energy Systems News


Back in 2005, we published a series of three articles by Paul Noel in which he described tornadoes and hurricanes from a cosmic energy vantage point.

    * Wilma the Super Storm and Energy from the Vacuum (Oct. 21, 2005)
    * Wilma the Capacitor (Oct. 25, 2005)
    * Tornadoes, Hurricanes, and Energy From the Vacuum (Oct. 26, 2005)

He said: "Energetically speaking, the vortex that forms in these storms is also a natural particle accelerator, and a massive capacitor bank. As the harmonic circuit develops, it resonates acoustically and functions as a capacitor, extracting the heat from the storm and transmitting it away. Without this electrical circuit, the storm would fail almost instantly due to the accumulation of heat from condensation of water."

The "Wilma the Capacitor" story was picked up by Slashdot, where Paul received a severe drubbing, being treated as an scientific imbecile.  However, Paul was vindicated (though no credited) nearly five years later by an article that appeared on April 14, 2010 in Science Daily: Giant Natural Particle Accelerator Above Thunderclouds.

So as you consider what Paul says here, and that it isn't yet something acknowledged by the scientific mainstream, I suggest that you have an open mind to the possibility that Paul may be ahead of of the scientific mainstream on the core concept here too.

Here is what he wrote to a New Energy Congress forum discussing the extreme cold weather in Brazil in contrast to the extreme heat in Russia.
[by Paul Noel]

The real reason for the weather is something obvious from space research. You can get storms out at Saturn and even Neptune. Solar heating isn't the driver. Storms are electromagnetic effects of the plasma fields surrounding the solar system. These are what make sun spots as well. The driver is electrical. Because the mechanism is primarily capacitant and is based on dielectric, there are very little in the way of perceived electrical currents yet these are the most massive in the universe. The dielectric is very able to produce the transfer of energy place to place without conduction. It is also able to cool and to heat.

A Welding Analogy

I visited the NASA lab where welding was developed for Space Shuttle External Tank manufacture some years ago. Because of the extreme temperatures down to about 10 Deg. Kelvin in space, the welds have to be perfect. They also must not contain differential crystal structures to the aluminum next to them. They must not induce tension or compression stresses either. In order to do this the welds have to be frozen nearly instantly. They take a plasma torch welder using RF to strike a high voltage arc to conduct the low voltage welding current. After it passes nearly instantly the fillet is frozen using an electrostatic charge device that freezes the welds at about 6 times the rate you can get using cryogenic cooling. This is similar to what does a big chill similar to in Brazil and Argentina right now. It is electromagnetics and electrostatics. This isn't weird science, it is standard welding technology.

If the charge potential is differentially reversed the process will heat things up. Typically the charge potentials North to South on earth are reversed. They seasonally reverse as well.

Thunder Storm Analogy

The reason you have not heard of this in the weather is that weather scientists have not balanced their energy equations. If they do they get heckled out of the office. The simple equation here for a summer thunderstorm will illustrate.

In order to produce a summer thunderstorm, you must (1) heat the water to be in the storm to boiling point. (1 cal/g/deg C) (2) You must then convert it to steam (512 cal/g) (3) you must lift the mass to altitude. This is a complex algorithm but roughly it corresponds to the falling energy of the mass over the altitude and is anywhere from 10 to 25 times the energy in steps (1 and 2) above. On condensation and rain out you also get one more factor which is the decrease in temperature typically about 20 deg C of the water as rain. Sum up all these numbers and you get the heat that a thunderstorm must dissipate. Go looking for the hot air folks! Please do because you will not find it. Thunderstorms form at cold spots and they get colder even than the air around them. They chill the location. This means that the energy has to be going somewhere. Wind energy losses are essentially zero. The mechanism for a thunderstorm that drops 3 inches of rain over 1000 square miles in 1 hour is about as much energy as the detonation of a 500 Mega Ton Hydrogen Bomb every 10 minutes or so. That is a lot of energy to get rid of. Because it doesn't burn up the neighborhood and doesn't destroy everything, the energy went somewhere folks. Hunt it down. The mechanism is Dielectric Transmission of Energy. It works because of numerous mechanisms. Lightning is evidence of the dielectric driven to failure point.

The seasonal differences are energy charge reversals with season as part of the tilt of the ecliptic related to the stellar field we are in. Please do not view this as a static field that doesn't move. It moves like the Northern Lights. In fact is it manifestly evident with the northern and southern lights.

On Aug. 21, 2010, Paul gave the following explanation in an ongoing discussion in a New Energy Congress forum stemming from the above information:
[by Paul Noel]

First let me say that science does not require agreement. I appreciate it personally but in good science we look at facts not opinions. We try to find out what reality is. Thanks just the same.

Next I will try to explain the issue of Dielectric Cooling:
Dielectric is the term we use to describe the function of a Capacitor.
Capacitors use two hopefully very highly conductive plates separated by what we call a Dielectric. The Dielectric is a very highly resistive to conduction material such as plastic, glass or such. When we charge one of the conductive plates, we instantly see on the opposite plate the exact same charge form except it is opposite to the one we just added.

Theory: The explanation we have (It is probably only a "good explanation") for heat is that it represents how fast the molecule is vibrating. More deeply the atomic theory says this is related to proton spin.

A simple illustration:
If you take a large bowl of water that is round and not irregular and spin it round and round it will form a spinning pool of water. This only stops after being pushed when friction slows it down. This in a large pool of water can take days or months. If you then start pushing the water into the opposite direction it will slow down and then stop. If you stop pusing at this point it will sit there not spinning. If you push some more it will spin in the opposite direction. This will correspond to the right and left hand spinning of a magnetic field or a proton spin. Please note: I had to add energy to make it spin. I had to add energy to stop the spin. I had to add energy to reverse it. The only thing that changed was the direction. Energy only appeared when it was spinning. It disappeared when it was stopped.

Now to your question about the Microwave: It is pretty simple here. Microwaves are an Alternating field like AC electricity. Your understanding is about correct except that you have to understand that the field we are dealing with is equivalent to a DC field. This is rather like a river. If you are sitting in a flowing river, the river appears to have no flow at all you just move along with it. If the river speeds up or slows down you get changes you can see. Dielectric is about like that.

In the case of a Dielectric a more simple example can be seen if you take a magnet and have a thin plate of plastic and then a lump of good magnetic type steel. When you put the magnet next to the plastic and the steel is on the other side the steel becomes a magnet exactly opposite in direction to your magnet. Energy transferred through the plastic but you couldn't measure any current or see any voltage. (No amps no Volts) This is why in the weather you don't see the energy move.

Now you referred to resonating dielectric fields. When a lightning bolt happens a short happens between the two plates of charge. When this happens something happens to the dielectric. It was highly compressed like between two magnets. It then is uncompressed. We all know that this produces Adeobatic changes or Air pressure changes. The lower pressure causes water to condense. This also changes the dielectric properties and causes the charges to reform. This is why lightning strokes and restrokes several times. The result is exactly what happens in a freezer or refrigeration unit. The Air gets cold and the water condenses. Lightning is not needed to do this. It can happen as a vortex flow in the air similar to a jet turbine. In every case the dielectric effect transports energy. The energy of a thunderstorm or Hurricane etc is transported two ways. It goes into the ground and it goes into the upper atmosphere plasma layer. Both layers have essentially no resistance and can transport the charge very long distances.

If you remember my bowl of water example, the energy state can appear or disappear without measure in our classic sense. This is a key principal to "Over Unity" energy issues. The energy can literally appear or disappear without trace. This principal is used for Laser cooling of matter. We resonate a beam to zero out the spin of the matter down to absolute zero. This is also the principal of MRI machines as they orient everything one way using a massive magnetic field and then let go and it rebounds. The energy released appears as radio waves that are detected and imaged.

If we can destroy energy by this means or create it by this means which we do all the time the game is on. I hope this lesson in atomic physics with simple real world examples is not taken too precisely by some. It is intended to be a simple way to help someone understand It isn't intended to be exact. But those who get too locked into the latest physics examples from the Nuclear or other Physics guys should realize that their examples are nothing but "good examples" too. They may not be as good as these. View the examples sort of like a parent trying to explain a complex subject to a child. They are approximations not exact. I have tried to be very close though.

If you want to see this dielectric in action look up a voltage doubler.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Voltage_doubler
In order for this device to work everything I have described here has to be a fact.

The only other thing I can suggest is that you watch the silly movie "Horton Hears a Who". It will be good to get you to understand that things have scale and may extend past normal understanding.

One fact you can rely on. The Macro World we live in is nothing but the sum of the micro world that exists beneath us. No principal existing below comes without expression in our world.

- - - -

I appreciate a kind word and hope this has helped others understand at least on a simple level what is going on.

There are several methods of cooling going on in the area of thunderstorms. In the upper atmospheric region there are several layers of plasma causing a multilayer capacitor to form. One of the most famous of these is the "Van Allen Radiation Belts." These are called Radiation belts because they were detected to contain in various layers electrons and protons not associated with any other matter. It turns out that this is a capture of the "Solar Wind" a plasma coming from the sun in the earth's magnetic field.

If one does a bit of research they can see that NASA is very interested in this issue of ionized particles. http://www.spaceweather.com will lead you to a lot of data on this. Most of the effort at Wallops Island is research into these issues. All of the data is coming back in support of what I have said. Unfortunately the Phyics Police as I call them still destroy the career of those who try to get at the truth.

Recently there was a NASA Project "Gravity B" which was billed as trying to prove Einstein's work. Actually the effort was to get the facts and it was essentially killed as the data poured in telling how the whole universe worked the way I have said.

(Please excuse me for a minor blow of my own horn!)
On the issues here in physics, I have been told I was an idiot for years by the "Physics Community." But the technical people told me to keep on going on. I was right and the Physics guys were wrong.

I believe I also gave the first "rational" explanation for what a magnet is. It is a diode in the ether of space. This explains its behavior pretty well. Just try to get an explanation out of the Physics community as to what a magnet is. They don't have one!


On the BP Macondo Well. The only thing that is still in any doubt is the exact output of the well and even now the estimates from the scientific community are pushing above 250,000 BPD. That would be only a 33% error on my part and I am still betting they get to my numbers. I was the first one who told about the fact that most of the oil didn't make it to the surface. Researchers from Georgia and Florida now say it was over 78% didn't make it to the surface. Now they are even talking about the methane effects.
I would say even if I am considered in error, you have to remember that those who guessed against me were supporting estimates like 5,000 BPD and 1,000 BPD. Those guys even by lowest scientific estimates now missed by between 95% and 99%. I think you could trust my error factors. I am more like "Spock" in my estimates.... Sorry for those who thought I should have my estimates taken with a grain of salt....

I hit the plumes. I hit the processes and now I am going to even tell people that the real horrors are about to begin as we see top to bottom damage to the ecosystem and a government who will tell any lie to sell contaminated seafood and prevent BP from facing the damage it did. OH! BP corked off recently for anyone who thinks that $20 Billion Escrow which they have only put $2 Billion into was a shakedown.... BP said that up to date the cleanup and damage costs were $26.6 Billion and counting. Actually I was a bit low on my damage estimates at $1 Trillion in 3 states. The damage because of the 6 month shutin of drilling is estimated to do $5 Trillion in damage. This is tilting the USA into an extended depression much deeper than the meltdown 2 years ago. This well has done more damage than the Fiscal Crisis did. Maybe you can see as an advocate of alternative energy why I said do not stop drilling only do it safer!

This having been said, I would much rather be right about good things and happy topics. I am very sad that I had to take the front on this issue. It seems nobody else was willing to take the issue on. The press was all too happy to swalllow money from BP and tell lies.

I remain a very hopeful for the future if we press forward on the Alternative Energy front. I am hearing good news on several fronts. It is coming along. We have to keep pressing forward. We have no hope without this. The issue is freedom not energy. Energy is required for freedom. The energy must come from our friends and not from those who hate us. The energy cannot come from those who want to exploit us either. This defines the parameters. The physics are with us. The facts are with us. The needs of mankind are with us. We need to keep our goal. Study, Work and Invent for the future depends on us. The future will never come from those who cannot see. The Bible says, "Where there is no vision, the people perish."

Paul Noel

On August 22, 2010, 4:05 AM Mountain, Hugh Campbell wrote:

    Paul,
    Nice to see someone also thinking differently about magnets. I personally believe that magnets are lenses in the same manner as a Gaussian lens works with a laser. If you follow the extended lines from a laser they eventually loop all the way around and appear as a very large magnetic field. The magnet acts more like a lens in a Gaussian system as it essentially creates a beam waist the same as with a laser. It is just a matter of realizing that lenses do not have to be clear or made from glass. Kind of like when germanium, which you can not see through with visible light, is used to focus infrared light. It gives you a different thought process as how different materials might be used to focus or concentrate energy. A diode needs to be part of a circuit where a lens causing a local space distortion causes coherent energy paths to appear as a magnetic field.

To which Paul responded as follows:
[by Paul Noel]

I will not argue with a "good explanation". I have learned that these things tend to be sort of like the story, "The blind men and the elephant." Your explanation is probably actually the same as mine just using a different view. Clearly a magnet projects an energy beam. (Another of those undefined Physics things!) The Gaussian Lens sort of says we are looking at it pretty much the same way. Remember Maxwell statement about Light, Electricity and Magnetism.

A classic of this sort of thing is the famous argument between the various sciences over the description of:
(1) Color
(2) Frequency
(3) Wave Length
(4) Wave Number
(5) Electron Voltage

Well folks those things get lots of argument but they are exactly the same thing. Color is typically somehow limited to the visible range but extends into all EM field frequencies. The others are just how you look at frequency. A Red beam for example at 635nm is still Red and has a wave length of 635 nm while its wave number is 635 and ...

This is something people need to understand in physics, chemistry, optics, astronomy and similar sciences. They get so proud of their definitions that they are unfriendly, unkind and just plain obtuse. I try to keep science as friendly as I can. I will also state for the record that the Physics, Astro-Physics etc communities are particularly proud of their equations. While the equations may or may not be useful, for the most part they hide a complete lack of understanding of the condition. If you cannot describe something fairly simply, you probably don't understand it.

For example: Math is really proud of its calculation engines and formula. In Astrophysics they get so proud of their Age of the Universe, Red Shifts and such. The problem they have is that they have exceeded the limits of their math. Floating Point Math is an approximation. It is never accurate. The only real math that exists is Integer Math. This is quite obvious when you understand that the smallest number of something (Whatever) there is, is ONE. View it this way. If I shoot a queue ball at a rack of 15 other balls, I get a set of interaction reactions that are essentially 15:1 The division reaction is 15/1. It is not 1/15 as the astrophysics guys discuss. The equation is upside down in their mind. This may seem trivial but if you shoot ZERO balls at 15 balls you get nothing. That is simply the reaction 15/0 = NULL. Now we computer scientists understand NULL but it seems most people do not. NULL isn't ZERO. It is NOT A REACTION. In our math it is an empty address. In Astrophysics this is really important because this reaction underlies all of the Age of the Universe, Distance and other supposed definitions.

What this says is that reactions have ORDERS OF MAGNITUDE. That is they have size. Below that size they do not react they do nothing! This shows up in the quantization of reactions in the universe. It says that if you get too small nothing happens. The upshot of this is that you should be careful not to believe very much coming out of the Astrophysics bunch. They are wrong because their math is wrong.

This leads to the most important understanding people need to know in science. Math is not a fact. Math is a model. Just as a model car is not a car and is no matter how accurately made not exactly what a full car is, math is not 100% accurate. It is always an estimate.

The other thing that needs to be understood in science is that FACT and LAWS are really hard to come by. Everything is open to checking and challenge. In science we have many things people have not accepted as fact for a long time. For example Archimedes Principal: This involves the displacement rules for boats and much more. It has never been shown to have one exception. It still isn't accepted as a LAW of science. Newton's LAWS are for example some how magically supposed to be absolute and in fact we know exceptions. I have a friend who has a patent on Machinery controls that eliminate Newton's laws from machine shop feed ways. His name is Ilmar Ilkuk. (The Teaching Factory) The man is brilliant. His stuff works every day. At the same time we have the Maxwell Equations which are proved well and have never been found to have an exception yet they are not generally considered laws of the universe. Ilmar's invention is based upon how NASA manages the attitude of the Space Station.

All of this having been said, I will not tell all of my details here, but I am slowly working down a magnetic research project and it is getting results. It appears very possible to control one magnetic field with another in fact it follows exactly the same rules as with RF transmitter fields. It is possible to add, subtract, multiply and divide fields. Leverage works quite well in the effort. I want to encourage others to do research as well. The generation of energy without fuel is not only possible, it is not difficult once you understand this.

I forsee a world soon without any fuel use at all. I can see us having energy where and when we want. Long distance transmission will be a thing of the past. Fuel stations for vehicles, batteries etc will also go away. I am making progress. I encourage others to make progress. If you get there before I do, lets celebrate and be friends.

When mankind is able to generate energy where and when he wants the only issue will be his character.

Freedom is the issue.

# # #
Comments
Electric Universe Theory supported by the IEEE

On August 20, 2010 10:03 AM mountain; S.S. wrote:

Regarding your recent article Extreme Weather a Function of Cosmic Dielectrics?

This is part of the Electric Universe Theory supported by the IEEE. Please check out below for some articles related to EU and weather.

http://www.thunderbolts.info/tpod/00sub ... tm#Weather

Further reading
http://www.holoscience.com/

http://www.thunderbolts.info/

http://pesn.com/2010/08/19/9501690_Extr ... electrics/

[CrackSmokeRepublican]

So it's quite possible that the thunderstorm activity we have on Earth may be driven by the continual input of electrical energy from the plasma of space. In other words weather, and hence climate, is actually the reaction of the earth's surface atmosphere to the changing electrical state of its space environment.

However we are told that human emission of CO2 affects this process. This is laughable.

Kristian Birkeland demonstrated this with his Terrella experiments.

Don Scott writes " Given what we now know, it seems likely that electric charge is transferred from the solar plasma to the Van Allen Belts and thence onto the upper atmosphere. The ELVES and Sprites continue the path downward, and the familiar lightning stroke to earth completes the path. All of this in addition to the auroral current path discovered by Birkeland. Therefore, ionised paths, some almost permanently in place and others that come and go, provide a direct link from the Earth's surface to the "Electric Sky" (Scott, The Electric Sky, 2006, p 135).

Put simply, the earth continuously receives electrical energy from the space plasma via the familiar lightning strokes with thunderstorms. The issue then is - are the storms produced by the incoming electrical currents, or vice versa?

http://geoplasma.spaces.live.com/blog/c ... !272.entry

When Birkeland changed the electrical power into his Terrella he observed that the electrical discharges moved from lower to high latitudes, much like the behaviour of hurricanes and cyclones on Earth.

[CrackSmokeRepublican]

Science News

Giant Natural Particle Accelerator Above Thunderclouds

ScienceDaily (Apr. 14, 2010) — A lightning researcher at the University of Bath has discovered that during thunderstorms, giant natural particle accelerators can form 40 kilometers above the surface of the Earth.

On April 14, Dr. Martin Fullekrug presented his new work at the RAS National Astronomy Meeting (NAM 2010) in Glasgow.

When particularly intense lightning discharges in thunderstorms coincide with high-energy particles coming in from space (cosmic rays), nature provides the right conditions to form a giant particle accelerator above the thunderclouds.

The cosmic rays strip off electrons from air molecules and these electrons are accelerated upwards by the electric field of the lightning discharge. The free electrons and the lightning electric field then make up a natural particle accelerator.

The accelerated electrons then develop into a narrow particle beam which can propagate from the lowest level of the atmosphere (the troposphere), through the middle atmosphere and into near-Earth space, where the energetic electrons are trapped in the Earth's radiation belt and can eventually cause problems for orbiting satellites. These are energetic events and for the blink of an eye, the power of the electron beam can be as large as the power of a small nuclear power plant.

The trick to determining the height of one of the natural particle accelerators is to use the radio waves emitted by the particle beam, explains Dr. Fullekrug.

These radio waves were predicted by his co-worker Dr. Robert Roussel-Dupré using computer simulations at the Los Alamos National Laboratory supercomputer facility.

A team of European scientists, from Denmark, France, Spain and the UK helped to detect the intense lightning discharges in southern France which set up the particle accelerator. They monitored the area above thunderstorms with video cameras and reported lightning discharges which were strong enough to produce transient airglows above thunderstorms known as sprites. A small fraction of these sprites were found to coincide with the particle beams.

The zone above thunderstorms has been a suspected natural particle accelerator since the Scottish physicist and Nobel Prize winner Charles Thomson Rees Wilson speculated about lightning discharges above these storms in 1925.

In the next few years five different planned space missions (the TARANIS, ASIM, CHIBIS, IBUKI and FIREFLY satellites) will be able to measure the energetic particle beams directly.

Dr Fullekrug comments: "It's intriguing to see that nature creates particle accelerators just a few miles above our heads. Once these new missions study them in more detail from space we should get a far better idea of how they actually work. They provide a fascinating example of the interaction between the Earth and the wider Universe."

http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/20 ... 202850.htm

[§N9sh2bj]

meyl.eu demonstrating low-voltage tesla, 10v, instantaneous scalar energy transmission of signals and energy
electric universe video, 'Secrets of an alien sky' available through a torrent
clips of some mars surface formations, shows how they were burnt there, just like slag from welding. Looks identical once pointed out.

[CrackSmokeRepublican]

That's a very Interesting post there §N9sh2bj... :up:


Found this too:

Apr 20, 2006
The Electric Hurricanes of 2005

Another mystery for meteorologists: As a rule, hurricanes display little if any lightning. But during the record-setting hurricane season of 2005 three of the most powerful storms—Rita, Katrina, and Emily—provoked an astonishing abundance of lightning.

Richard Blakeslee of the Global Hydrology and Climate Center (GHCC) in Huntsville, Alabama, was one of a team of scientists who explored Hurricane Emily using NASA's ER-2 aircraft, a research version of the famous U-2 spy plane. Flying high above the storm, they noted frequent lightning in the cylindrical wall of clouds surrounding the hurricane's eye. Both cloud-to-cloud and cloud-to-ground lightning were present, "a few flashes per minute", says Blakeslee. "Generally there's not a lot of lightning in the eye-wall region", Blakeslee says.

In fact, the electric fields above Emily were among the strongest ever measured by the aircraft's sensors over any storm. "We observed steady fields in excess of 8 kilovolts per meter. That is huge--comparable to the strongest fields we would expect to find over a large land-based 'mesoscale' thunderstorm".

According to Blakeslee, the reason for the usual absence of lightning in hurricanes is understood. "They're missing vertical winds" ... "A hurricane's winds are mostly horizontal, not vertical. So the vertical churning that leads to lightning doesn't normally happen".

But why did lightning occur in the recent hurricanes? "We still have a lot to learn about hurricanes", Blakeslee observes.

Indeed. And we still have a lot to learn about lightning too. The distinguished expert on lightning, Dr. Martin Uman, has admitted that the separation of charges in a thunderstorm remains a mystery. So in truth, the absence of lightning in tornadoes and hurricanes is not understood.

But the answer becomes both simple and undeniable once the electrical nature of the solar system is admitted. An electric solar system could hardly exclude an electric Earth. And once we see electrical phenomena on Earth in relation to the larger circuitry, our planet's atmosphere can be compared to the leaky dielectric in a "self-repairing capacitor": the charge is already waiting in the ionosphere to be unleashed in storms in the atmosphere. We have seen the electrical connection of thunderstorms to the ionosphere in the appearance of giant lightning bursts to space. These electrical displays have been named "red sprites" and "blue jets".

From an electrical viewpoint, the vertical winds are not the cause of charge separation because charge separation already exists; the winds are driven by electrical discharge activity. But in a tornado or hurricane the discharge takes on a familiar circular motion, whereupon powerful electromagnetic forces constrain the discharge to what has been called a "charge sheath vortex." Here, the energy of the discharge goes into driving the vortex, imparting to it a devastating power, though visible arcing (lightning) may be minimal.

But it seems that in the most powerful manifestations of the charge sheath vortex, charge separation in the wall of the vortex itself can manifest lightning. And if so, meteorologists would be well advised to expand their investigations of lightning, hurricanes, and tornadoes into the realm of plasma physics.

http://www.thunderbolts.info/tpod/2006/ ... icanes.htm

[CrackSmokeRepublican]

The Electromagnetic Nature of Tornadic Supercell Thunderstorms

Last modified: 2010-11-13 16:33:57 UTC

© 2007~2010 Charles L. Chandler

http://charles-chandler.org/Geophysics/ ... 20Main.php

1. Preface

People who have read previous versions of this work might be surprised to see that the contentions herein continue to evolve. Unlike academic works, which are permanent records of opinions as they were at the time, and to which scholars become attached for the sake of credibility, this is a dynamic work, continually pursuing a more accurate description of the topic. Hence this work has changed, as comments and criticisms from readers like you have created opportunities for improvements, and it will continue to change. This causes confusion, but that's better than tenacity in the face of legitimate criticisms. Perhaps this will always be a work-in-progress, as it is doubtful that any of us will live to see something as complex as a tornadic supercell completely described. But if we should ever have to choose between truth and credibility, we must always choose truth, because credibility isn't worth much without it. And while this remains a massively speculative work, it is nevertheless arguable that it has emerged as the most complete theory of supercells and tornadoes ever presented to the public. So the method is working, and therefore, it will persist.

Also, please note that in meteorology, the term "thermodynamics" is used in the narrowest of its senses: the dynamics of thermal fluxes. It is also assumed that the topic is open-air convective systems. Within this context, thermodynamics is the study of heat sources and sinks that alter the density of the air, which in the presence of gravity results in airflows, which can be quantified in fluid dynamic terms. Other disciplines use "thermodynamics" to refer to general principles of energy and entropy that apply to all forces, including electromagnetism. But in meteorology, electromagnetism and thermodynamics are studied separately. For example, here is a quote from a question-and-answer web-page maintained by NSSL:

    Question: Are there electromagnetic or magnetohydrodynamic explanations for the development of tornadoes?

    Answer: As far as scientists understand, tornadoes are formed and sustained by a purely thermodynamic process.

The present work takes a very different position, and demonstrates that electromagnetism has to be promoted to the status of a peer with thermodynamics if we are to achieve a more accurate description of the phenomena. But the point here is that the reader may find it odd to hear electromagnetism and thermodynamics being discussed as peers — that's not the correct relationship between these two sets of principles. Yet in meteorology, this is conventional usage of the terms.

One more thing: depending on how you got here, you might not know that there is a brief introduction to this work, at:

    http://charles-chandler.org/Geophysics/ ... 0Brief.php

That's a great place to start if you're just curious as to how this work attempts to apply EM principles to the study of tornadoes.
2. Abstract

Supercell thunderstorms, and the tornadoes they spawn, are considered. Consistency with the current research trends within the disciplines of meteorology and geophysics is neglected in the pursuit of a broader framework that can directly address the large number of anomalies in the existing theories. Specifically, the common assumption that electromagnetism is too weak to influence the behavior of a supercell is challenged. The air in a supercell is moving rapidly, and a portion of that air is recirculating in a continuous loop. Due to the charge separation process in the storm, this recirculating air is bearing charged particles. The flow of charged particles constitutes a pole-less, closed-loop electric current. The movement of charged particles generates magnetic fields that then influence the movement of the particles. The magnetic fields are extremely weak by EM standards, but since electromagnetism is 39 orders of magnitude more powerful than gravity, near-infinitesimal magnetic fields could still be powerful enough to influence, if not dominate, an open-air thermal system. If the airflows in a supercell are being modulated by electrodynamic forces, many otherwise inexplicable behaviors become far easier to understand. Most significantly, a charged double-layer is identified that travels down around the outside, and up through the inside of the storm, and the properties of this double-layer offer an explanation for tornadoes. The present work agrees that the driving force in a tornado is the low pressure under the supercell's updraft. But the defining characteristic of a tornado is that it attaches robustly to the surface of the Earth, and this isn't explicable in fluid dynamic terms (at the given pressures, densities, viscosities, speeds, angular momenta, surface friction coefficients, etc.). The only possible conclusion is that some other force must be present, and the only other force present in the atmosphere is electromagnetism. Previous works considered the possibility that a weak but sustained electric current between the ground and the cloud could cause a tornado. An electric current can, indeed, cause a discharge vortex, but it cannot cause a tornado, as there is no way to concentrate the release of energy at the solid boundary, begging the original question. The present work takes a different approach. If a charged double-layer is traveling down around the outside of the cloud, then at the bottom of the cloud this double-layer will get rammed down to the ground (as the RFD and FFD), and then skidded along the ground toward the updraft. Because of its electric charge, it will induce an opposite charge in the Earth, and then it will be attracted to that opposite charge. If the tornadic inflow is attracted to the Earth, it becomes easy to understand how the tornado attaches so robustly to the surface. A vortex is not an entity, but rather, a condition in a medium, and in order to understand the vortex, we have to have to neglect the vortex and study the medium instead. So we should not say that the tornado is binding to the surface, but rather, that the tornadic inflow is binding to the surface. If an electrostatic attraction is added to the fluid dynamic factors, a tornadic vortex becomes possible. A wide variety of observational and instrumental evidence is considered, without finding reason to abandon the hypothesis that a charged double-layer is a necessary condition for tornadogenesis.



Figure 1. Conceptual model of the movement of charged particles in a symmetrical tornadic storm (such as a "pulse" storm). Asymmetrical storms will be treated as variations on the same principles.
Conceptual model of the movement of charged particles in a symmetrical tornadic storm (such as a 'pulse' storm). Asymmetrical storms will be treated as variations on the same principles.

----------------
40. Tornadic Levitation

Tornadoes are low-pressure ("suction") vortexes, and the general public has come to think of them as giant vacuum cleaner hoses that can pick up large objects in precisely the same manner as a household vacuum cleaner picks up small objects.137,164,165 Figure 117 is taken from a video that is frequently cited as an example of the "suction power" of a tornado. (Click the link to watch the video on YouTube.)

(Also cited in Dr. Judy Wood's website--CSR)


Figure 117. Cars picked up by tornado in Leighton, AL, 2008-05-08, courtesy S&M Equipment Company.
Cars picked up by tornado in Leighton, AL, 2008-05-08, courtesy S&M Equipment Company.

But it's naïve to think that a simple "suction" vortex has lines of motion capable of producing such a phenomenon. For a low pressure vortex to extend all of the way to a solid boundary, the angular momentum in the inflow has to be so great that the centrifugal force so generated will oppose the centripetal force from the low pressure, such that the air cannot reach the extreme low pressure in the core of the vortex. The air then rotates rapidly around the center as it moves slowly upward, producing helical lines of motion, in which the speed of rotation is far greater than the vertical velocity. In such conditions, objects will not be lifted straight up — the primary acceleration will be tangent to the rotation of the vortex. If a car is picked up in such conditions (because a high pressure developed under the body of the car), once off the ground, the car will be accelerated in the direction of the winds. Yet we can clearly see that these cars were picked straight up.

This is clear proof that the lines of motion in a tornadic vortex are fundamentally different from those in a low pressure vortex. Inside the vortex, the air shoots straight up, forgetting its angular momentum. This could only be possible if inside the vortex, new forces are introduced or existing forces are removed, such that a radical change in behavior is manifested. It's not the introduction of a high pressure that could alter the lines of motion, as there is no source for such energy at the surface. We can only conclude that some existing force that was preventing upward motion has been removed. This can only be an electrostatic attraction that is neutralized by the flow of an electric current.

Then there is a different type of levitation that sometimes occurs outside of the vortex. Scientists have not applied any critical scrutiny to these reports, and the common "explanation" is flatly absurd. A tornado was nearby; things were picked up; tornadoes are suction vortexes; any questions? Yet outside of the vortex, the lines of motion are parallel to the ground. So the vertical motion within the vortex would be irrelevant, even if the conventional framework could explain it. A critical treatment of the topic requires that we explain how objects are picked up just with horizontal air motion.

At first blush, this doesn't seem like a hard task. Cars will become airborne if subjected to crosswinds above roughly 60 m/s. (See this video for an example.) Contrary to popular belief, it is not the Bernoulli Effect that lifts up the cars, wherein a low pressure has developed above the car. Rather, when air broadsides the car, some of it gets forced under the car, created a high pressure below it, and this is the force that lifts up the car. Once off the ground, the car is then rapidly accelerated in the direction of the wind, and hits the ground (for the first time at least) 5 m or more away. If it bounces, wind can once again get under the car and lift it up, and the process repeats. So all that is necessary for cars to get levitated is that the windspeed be in excess of 60 m/s, which is in the EF2 range. And there is plenty of evidence of cars being picked up and bounced for some distance in the strong winds of EF2+ tornadoes.

But there are a number of well-documented cases of vehicles being picked up and behaving in a manner that cannot be explained in such simple terms. In these cases, the vehicles were picked up after the strongest winds has passed, and instead of being accelerated in the direction of the winds, they simply hovered for a while.

For example, during the tornado that hit La Plata, MD, on April 28, 2002, a bus with 30 people aboard was lifted off the ground, kept suspended in air for several seconds, and then set back down on the wheels. High wind speeds could have picked up the bus, but then the bus would have been accelerated horizontally, and it would have hit the ground hard and rolled several times, destroying the bus and probably killing many of the passengers.

Here's a similar report, again from Maryland, this time from Steve Tracton, Ph.D. (meteorology):

    In 1995, I was in my car one night, patiently waiting the opportunity to turn from a driveway onto a street in Temple Hills, MD, when seemingly out of nowhere the wind increased to what I perceived as hurricane strength. Needless to say, I was totally surprised and scared beyond belief when my car rose at least two feet off the ground. Fortunately, the wind decreased as rapidly as it had increased, and my car settled back down on the driveway.

Watching any of the videos of cars hitting the ground after being picked up by high wind speeds, do the words "settled back down" come to mind?

The following is an eyewitness report of a car being picked up by a tornado, and a photo of the results.

    The man in the house near us was very lucky. He was in the yard and was hanging on for dear life and watched his car raise about 5 feet in the air and float for a few feet toward his house. The car then was gently lowered on his fence and it tilted on its side and was gently lowered to the ground. His house was not touched and he was next to the car and was not harmed. He was hanging on that corner post that you see with the brace on it.



Figure 118. Damage from tornado in Номмуна, Заря Свободы, RU, 2009-06-13, courtesy Kyle and Svet Keeton.
Damage from tornado in Номмуна, Заря Свободы, RU, 2009-06-13, courtesy Kyle and Svet Keeton.

When further questioned on how the car came to rest in this position, the eyewitness elaborated:166

    The car actually floated after the main body of the tornado passed over head and was out of sight. The winds were still strong but I was watching the car as was the man who owned the car. The wind damage was done and the car just gently lowered onto the fence. It did not crash to the ground. The fence held the car side up and the car tipped then gently lowered on its side.

    Yes, slight damage but the car was uprighted after the fence removed and driven away. No dents except slight impressions from rocks and such as it laid on its side...

How could strong winds pick up a car and then gently set it down on a wooden fence — why was the lateral acceleration so slight? And why did this happen after the tornado had already passed?

Here's another example, again from Russia. It's clear that the truck had been exposed to high winds, since the damage to the truck body would have been caused by flying debris. But it's also clear that the truck was not rolled by the high winds. So it was picked up and kept upright, and then set on the car. In winds strong enough to pick up the truck, why didn't the truck get rolled? And how could the lateral acceleration be so slight as to allow the truck to come to rest teetering on the car like this?




Figure 119. Damage from F3 tornado in Краснозаводск, RU, 2009-06-03, courtesy English Russia.
Damage from F3 tornado in Краснозаводск, RU, 2009-06-03, courtesy English Russia.

There are also confirmed reports of people being picked up by a tornado, and sometimes carried for some distance, and then set back down gently enough that they were relatively unharmed. (The longest confirmed distance that a tornado carried a person who survived was 400 m.167 The person suffered no injuries when hitting the ground.) High wind speeds could certainly have picked up the people, but then the people would have been rapidly accelerated to a substantial percentage of the speed of those winds. It's hard to imagine how people could hit the ground after being airborne for 50 m in winds powerful enough to pick them up, and not be injured in process. (Hitting the ground at 15 m/s without breaking bones takes skill. In an uncontrolled fall, hitting the ground at 5 m/s can break bones. So how do strong winds pick people up, and then set them back down at less than 15 m/s?)

And then there have been cases where entire houses have been picked up and carried, and then set back down, damaged but still relatively intact. The anomalous aspect of this is not that an object as big as a house could be picked up. Houses are mainly empty space, with lots of surface area upon which the winds can exert force. But houses simply are not built in such a way that they can be picked up, except from underneath, without falling apart. Without being able to get underneath the house to pick it up, the only other way to generate the necessary uplift without destroying the house is with a force that can act upon the entire mass at once. There are only two such forces in nature operative at this scale — gravity and electromagnetism. It's not gravity, because the houses were picked up. That leaves electromagnetism.

The EMHD model asserts that the tornadic inflow is positively-charged, and the surface of the Earth has an induced negative charge. This means that particulate matter from the surface that is getting blown in the wind will be negatively-charged. Objects exposed to the tornadic inflow (such as people, cars, etc.) will be sandblasted with this particulate matter, and will therefore pick up a negative charge. After becoming negatively charged, the objects will be attracted by the electric force to the positively-charged air around them. Since there is more air above them than below them, the net force will be upward. And since electromagnetism is 39 orders of magnitude more powerful than gravity, even an extremely small EM force can be the determining factor. Also, if the strongest positive charge in the storm is in the RFD, objects will be subjected to the most powerful uplifting force after the tornado passes.


Figure 120 shows a house that was picked up and moved by winds that were rated EF2 (because of the removal of the roof), but the car in the garage was left untouched. This is anomalous because EF2 winds are capable of blowing cars off of roads, or even picking them up.168

Figure 120. House relocated by the tornado in Greensburg, KS, 2007-05-04, courtesy Tim Marshall.
House relocated by the tornado in Greensburg, KS, 2007-05-04, courtesy Tim Marshall.

It's possible that the house lost its roof in the EF2 winds, but it was not the lateral winds that picked up the house and moved it. Rather, the house was subjected to triboelectric charging as the tornado passed overhead, and then after the winds subsided, the house was picked up and set back down 20 meters away by the electric force. The car inside the garage was shielded from triboelectric charging during the strongest winds, so it did not experience the same uplifting force later.

We should now take an even closer look at the most anomalous cases — the ones in which the objects actually hovered. The reports are consistent in asserting that the fastest winds had already passed, and the eyewitnesses guessed the wind speeds at something like 30 m/s when the objects started "floating." Such winds are clearly insufficient to levitate the objects, and this section presents the more plausible explanation, that the electric force was at work. Yet even in 30 m/s winds, we still wouldn't expect objects to hover — there should still be a drag force that would accelerate the objects in the direction of the wind. A car picked up off a driveway and which hovered for several seconds should have at least landed in the ditch, if not fully on the grass.

If we consider the conditions in which this will happen, we find the answer. The objects were subjected to triboelectric charging as the tornado passed by. Then they were levitated. This means that they were then between the RFD and the tornado. There the winds will be traveling from the RFD toward the tornado. If the RFD is the primary source of positive charge, the lines of electric force would not have been straight up. If we look at Figure 71, and assume that the entire RFD is positively-charged, and then consider the force exerted on a negatively-charged object halfway between the RFD and the tornado, we see that the net force will be angled upward, toward the main body of charge in the RFD. (See Figure 121. Note that while electric lines of force intersect a plane conductor perpendicular to it, the Earth is only an excellent conductor below the water table, and the soil above the water table could be a good or fair conductor. So the lines of force will not be perpendicular to the surface, but rather, to the water table, which could be several meters below the surface.) So while the wind will be blowing toward the tornado, the electric force will be upward and back toward the RFD, the net result of which could be no net lateral acceleration. It would be a rare case indeed that the forces happened to be perfectly matched. And so it is in fact. Nevertheless, this is the only way that hovering is possible.



Figure 121. Stack of positive charges above a solid conductor.
Stack of positive charges above a solid conductor.

41. Exploding Houses

Eyewitnesses to the destruction of houses by tornadoes have testified for years that the houses "explode" upward and outward. The following is a quote from UCAR on the topic.

    Scientists once thought that you should open your windows during a tornado. The thinking behind this was that the extreme low pressure in a tornado would cause the air in your house to explode. Opening your windows would let the air expand without damaging your house. As it turns out, houses aren't as sealed as they thought so the air would have no problem getting out.

That much is true. But the quote goes on to say:

    It turns out that the strong winds associated with a tornado can lift the roof off a house. Without the support of the roof, the walls are blown down and they fall outward. The roof may be dropped back on the rubble or some place nearby. This gives the impression that the house exploded.

Are we really to believe that the walls will simply "fall outward" because there is nothing tieing them together at the top? All other factors being the same, a vertical wall experiences no horizontal force. 30 m/s winds will easily blow down an unbraced wall. And the wall will fall in the direction of the winds. In winds sufficient to tear the roof off a house (50~60 m/s), it is not physically possible for an unbraced wall to fall down against the wind.

More problematic is the fact that the roofs are, indeed, lifted straight up, and then can sometimes fall straight back down, or land nearby. The standard explanation for this is a set of forces known collectively as the Bernoulli Principle.169 But contrary to the "math" in the just-cited literature, aerodynamic lift is not a function of the size of the object, but rather, of the shape, and the shape of a gable roof prevents aerodynamic lift. If strong winds are going to tear the roof off a house, it will not be with low pressure above the roof, but rather, with high pressure under the eaves, and the roof is pealed back, like the lid of a sardine can.

So what can lift a roof straight up, in the absence of aerodynamic uplift, and in winds slight enough that the roof isn't even accelerated (much) in the direction of the winds by the drag force, then to fall back down on walls that were "blown outward"?

If a house has been subjected to triboelectric charging, then something that detaches from the house will be repelled from the house by electrostatic repulsion. This force will be upward and outward. Additionally, if the house is negatively-charged, there will be an electrostatic attraction to the space charge coming from the RFD. This force will be upward. If we add these forces to the force of the lateral winds, the observations make more sense.

42. Polarity Reversals

Somewhere in the range of 85%~95% of all cloud-to-ground lightning is "negative," wherein the arc discharge is between a negative pole in the cloud and a positive pole in the ground.170 This is easy to understand, since the main negative charge region is lower in the cloud (and therefore closer to the ground) than the main positive region, hence an arc discharge can occur with less voltage, so it happens more frequently. Lightning from the main positive charge region at the top of the cloud down to the ground requires upward of 100 million volts to initiate an arc discharge, so it is a bit more rare.

This does not mean that all positive strikes have to come from the upper portion of the cloud. Weaker positive charge regions can develop lower in the cloud, resulting in positive strikes with less voltage. But usually, the lower positive regions are too weak to initiate lightning, and negative strikes dominate the statistics.

The interesting thing about supercells is that they develop as "normal" thunderstorms, with a negative charge in the middle of the cloud inducing a positive charge in the Earth. Then typically there is a polarity reversal as the storm enters the tornadic phase, and the charge aloft becomes positive, with an induced negative charge in the Earth. The CG lightning issued during this phase is predominantly (or even exclusively) positive.171,172,173 Shortly after the tornado ropes out, the polarity reverses again, back to the "normal" configuration.

This is anomalous because we can clearly see the internal structure of the storm on Doppler radar, and there is no change in storm structure that accompanies these polarity reversals. This might sound trivial, but it is not. While protons and electrons have exactly the same amount of charge (though opposite in sign), they have very different physical characteristics. In a thunderstorm, negative charges are found mostly in hail and to a lesser extent in large raindrops, while positive charges are carried by microscopic ice crystals, supercooled aerosols, and by nitrogen and oxygen molecules that collide with positively-charged water molecules. Since hail is the best radar reflector in the storm, with large raindrops being good reflectors, and since these are the primary negative charge carriers, we should expect the negative charge regions to correspond roughly with what we see on radar.173,174,175 The significance of this is that a polarity reversal should be accompanied by a visible change in the storm structure on radar, but it is not.

In the standard model, this is not a solvable problem, because all of the electric charges are assumed to be in the cloud, carried by water molecules. No existing construct asserts that the air between the cloud and the ground might be bearing a powerful electric charge. Hence the polarity reversal, without a corresponding change in Doppler radar, in inexplicable.

The more reasonable interpretation of the data is that if radar is telling us that the main negative charge region is still there, its charge is still there too. If the perceived electric field at the surface inverts, then a positive double-layer had to come between us and the negative charges. Hence the combination of the radar and electric field data constitute one of the proofs that during the tornadic phase, the air below the cloud is bearing a strong positive charge.
43. Lightning Holes

The "lightning hole" was mentioned earlier, and an example is clearly visible in Figure 65. While the "hole" is not absolute, and lightning does occur within this region, there is typically a 50~70% reduction in lightning strikes.105,106,107,108 As previously stated, the absence of lightning coincides with a sharp reduction in the electric field. In fact, the field relaxes to zero, and then inverts, showing a positive charge aloft, and an induced negative charge at the surface (as presented in the previous section). Less lightning in a reduced electric field makes sense, but the two facts together beg the question of what happened to the negative charge within the cloud.

Previous EM theories have argued that the tornado is continually discharging the potentials, resulting in an overall reduction in electric field.100 But this asks more questions than it answers. How could the tornado create a lightning hole 9 km wide, getting the charges to travel more than 4 times the distance to the ground to get into the discharge channel? The conductivity of the Earth should be the more attractive alternative to such charges, and that would be assuming that the discharge channel was as conductive as the ground, which it's not. And how could a tornado discharge so much potential that the field inverts? And if tornadoes are feeding off the same energy that causes lightning, why is it typical that the lightning activity goes from almost nothing to the highest rate during the entire life of the storm as the tornado dissipates?



Figure 122. Reduced lightning strike rate before and during the tornadic phase of a storm in Atlanta, GA, 1975-03-24, courtesy Georgia Tech.
Reduced lightning strike rate before and during the tornadic phase of a storm in Atlanta, GA, 1975-03-24, courtesy Georgia Tech.

The EMHD model states that the general storm structure does not change during the tornadic phase, and that the negative charge is there the whole time. Some of this charge passes down through the tornado. But more significantly, during the tornadic phase a positive double-layer wraps around the storm. During this period, the perceived electric field, if measured at the surface, will be weak. All of the electric field will be between the positive double-layer and the negative core, and an electric field meter at the surface will be outside of this field. And it makes sense that the small field that is present indicates a positive charge aloft. Even if the negative and positive charges were perfectly matched, the outermost aspect of the positive double-layer is against a conductor (i.e., the Earth), where it induces an opposite charge, thereby inverting the perceived field at the surface.

But if that's true, then why isn't there any lightning between the negative inner core and the positive double-layer? There should be more than enough potential for this, but it definitely isn't happening.

If we make a critical investigation into what could be reducing the lightning strike rate, we quickly realize that any answer will rest implicitly on our understanding of what creates lightning in the first place. Yet such an understanding does not exist. It's obvious that an arc discharge is the result of an electrostatic potential that exceeded the resistance of the air. But it's less than obvious why lightning can occur with only 30 kV/m of potential. In the laboratory, it takes roughly 3,000 kV/m to create an electric arc.176 So it's not just electrostatic potential that causes lightning — it's that and something else that can lower the threshold by 2 orders of magnitude.

Current research is focusing on small pockets of charge that somehow develop in the upper portion of the cloud. The thinking is that the local field near these pockets might achieve the 3,000 kV/m necessary for an arc discharge. After the initial discharge, a series of return strokes within the cloud elongates the discharge channel, as excess charges slosh back and forth, involving more and more of the cloud in the process. If the discharge channel gets close enough to the ground, the potential at the ground will rise instantaneously to 3,000 kV/m, and a CG strike will occur.

That much makes sense, but it leaves the most interesting questions unanswered. How does the charge density in these pockets build up to the breakdown voltage of the air — why didn't electrostatic repulsion dissipate the charge? And how could it build up so fast that it doesn't even initiate a glow discharge first? The charge separation process in a thunderstorm is capable of building up tens of millions of volts of potential, but it takes tens of minutes to do this. To get to the potential for an arc discharge, you normally have to surpass the threshold for a glow discharge. If this happens slowly, the glow discharge will certainly occur, and it will be obvious. But this doesn't happen in thunderstorms.

It almost goes without saying that some other force must be present, that preserves the charge separation, even past the potential for a glow discharge. So the question is: what force can keep electric charges separate in a low-viscosity medium until the potential for an arc discharge is achieved?

Applying EMHD principles to this problem produces interesting results. At the top of the cloud, negatively-charged precipitation is pouring out of the updraft and then falling through drier air. The evaporation of the precipitation cools the air, creating downdrafts. A falling parcel of air will assume a tear-drop shape, with a toroidal flow within the parcel. And while the toroid is a very low-friction shape in fluid dynamics, it is also an important shape in electrodynamics. As the parcel descends, and charged air is recirculated within the tear-drop shape, the electrodynamic forces will reinforce the fluid dynamic form. This will prevent the parcel from getting perturbed by random gusts into a more turbulent, higher-friction form. So we can expect this form to be present, and we need to fully consider its behaviors in these conditions.

First, we would expect the downdraft to become magnetically-pinched. Interestingly, pinching the charged particles in the parcel will compress the air, and this will increase its density. This, of course, will make it fall faster. And that, of course, will increase the magnetic pinch effect. At the speeds in question, the magnetic pinch effect will be slight, at least by comparison to the sorts of contexts in which this effect is normally considered (e.g., plasma physics). But it may still be quite robust compared to the thermodynamic forces present, which are manifestations of the force of gravity (which itself is 39 orders of magnitude weaker than electromagnetism).

Second, as the parcel falls, it will make its way through air that has precipitation suspended in it. While the air itself will be split apart by the advancing toroidal flow, the precipitation has more mass and a higher terminal velocity. This means that the precipitation will be more likely to just stay where it is, and penetrate the falling parcel. Once inside the tear-drop shape, this precipitation might get trapped by the magnetic fields, and then join the parcel in its descent. In other words, the toroidal flow will scavenge precipitation from the air through which it falls. Picking up additional precipitation will keep the evaporative cooling process going, further increasing the density of the air (and thereby the fall rate). Any excess precipitation will simply add more weight to the parcel (known as "precipitation loading"), which will also increase the fall rate.



Figure 123. Falling parcel scavenges precipitation from surrounding air.
Falling parcel scavenges precipitation from surrounding air.

And all aspects of these factors are mutually-enhancing. The faster the parcel falls, the stronger the magnetic pinch effect, meaning denser air, and where the faster parcel will scavenge more precipitation, which will increase the charge, thereby increasing the magnetic pinch effect, etc.

By accumulating more and more precipitation as it falls, the tear-drop parcel has a natural way of building up more and more charge, and holding onto it. This could be the way pockets of charge develop the potential necessary for an arc discharge.

If this is the case, we can easily understand why the lightning strike rate drops during the tornadic phase of a supercell. The organized airflow consolidates the updraft and the downdraft into a singular entity with a continuous laminar flow. This prevents the scavenging that is necessary for local potentials to approach 3,000 kV/m. Hence the lightning hole might not be a result of less overall electrostatic potential, but simply a result of less extreme local charge densities. And (as mentioned earlier) the reduced electric field might not be because of less potential, but because of the introduction of screening layer between the ground and the cloud. Then, when the structure of the storm starts to fall apart in the dissipation stage, laminar airflows convert to turbulence, the lightning strike rate jumps way up, and the tornado ropes out.

As an aside, this construct also offers an explanation for another anomalous meteorological phenomenon: microbursts. With a straight Navier-Stokes simulation, we can get small laminar downdrafts with speeds approaching 40 m/s. Then we hit the Reynolds number, and the flow is randomized, dropping the speed below 20 m/s. But in microbursts, speeds in excess of 100 m/s have been recorded. Calculating the Reynolds number requires knowing all of the factors, but there are no known conditions that can result in small downdrafts traveling this fast. But what if the microburst is an electrodynamically-reinforced toroidal flow, and what if the conditions did not materialize for a lightning strike (which would have eliminated the structure)? We can easily justify overall fall rates in the range of 50 m/s, on the basis of the density of a wet downdraft (if we could get past the Reynolds number). If it's a reinforced toroidal flow, the low-friction form does this. Then, if the outside of the toroid is stopped with respect to the surrounding air, and the inside is falling twice as fast, the air in the center of the form will hit the ground at 100 m/s.

This could have significant implications for the airline industry. Getting hit by a microburst while on final approach is one of a pilot's worst nightmares. Currently the only way to detect microbursts is with a simplified form of Doppler radar installed in the nose of the jet, that detects vertical shear. But this technology only gives the pilot 10~15 seconds of warning. If the present contentions are correct, the charged microburst took about 10 minutes to descend from the top of the cloud, building charge on the way. The movement of this charged parcel might be detectable with a magnetometer, and if so, it might be possible to increase the lead time to several minutes. Microbursts are rare, so they are tough to study, but magnetometers are cheap, so it still might be feasible to install them in the control towers at major airports, to begin collecting data, such that if a microburst occurs, we'll have the data necessary to determine the effectiveness of this proposal.
44. RF Emissions

Tornadic storms produce sustained RF emissions at (relatively) stable frequencies, in the range of 20~140 MHz.15,177,178 Also, there appears to be some sort of causal relationship between high frequency emissions and extremely powerful tornadoes.

One source of sustained RF emissions could be small-scale arc discharges at the top of the cloud, where the charge separation process begins.179 But discharges at the top of the cloud would have no obvious causal relationship with the tornado at the bottom of the cloud. Another theory is that the waves are generated by rotating charges in the tornado.180 But no explanation is given for how a vortex rotating at less than 60 rpm would generate waves at 20~140 MHz.

Given that the specified relationship is between tornadoes and RF emissions, the most logical place to look for the source of the emissions is inside the tornado. We know that there is an electric current inside the tornado, sufficient in rare cases to create glow discharges, and in extremely rare cases, arc discharges at the tornado/mesocyclone interface, visible from the outside. The fact that the distinctive RF emissions are far more consistent than the observations of tornadic lightning indicates that the discharges are normally hidden inside the cloud.

The frequency at which the amplitude of photon emission is modulated is a function of the length of the lightning channel. Assuming that the speed of the electrons in lightning is 1⁄10 the speed of light,181 or roughly 30,000,000 m/s, we can develop rough numbers for the length of a lightning strike, given the frequency of the RF emissions.
Lightning RF Emissions
band    freq.    length
VLF    30 kHz    1,000 m
AM    520 kHz    57.69 m
AM    1610 kHz    18.63 m
TV    54 MHz    0.56 m

Since most lightning traverses 1~3 km, most of the RF energy is in the VLF band (3~30 kHz),100,182 with enough energy present in the AM band (520~1610 kHz) to cause radio static. The RF interference created by tornadoes in the TV band (54~216 MHz) is of sufficient amplitude, if the tornado is within a couple of kilometers, to overpower the TV signal, resulting in a screenful of snow.183 The discharge channels associated with such interference would be less than 0.56 m long, and it's possible that these correspond to the reports of "lightning fingers" inside the tornado.134,135,136

Note that the high-frequency emissions are only detectable with a TV set if the tornado is within a couple of kilometers. It doesn't take very many watts of power to transmit RF energy that distance.

While the distinctive high-frequency emissions do not precede the tornado, so they cannot be used to predict tornadoes, they might be useful in verifying tornadoes. 72% of all tornado warnings are false alarms, so not everybody takes aggressive defensive action when they hear the sirens. But a confirmed tornado on the ground is a different issue. Unfortunately, there isn't always someone there to make such a confirmation. But radio waves can be detected from a long distance (with instruments more sensitive than a TV set), so real-time monitoring of these emissions could lead to more reliable nowcasting.
45. St. Elmo's Fire

[CrackSmokeRepublican]

28. Tornadic Currents

While the pressure gradients described in the previous section are consistent with the available evidence, and adequately explain the expansion of the tornado in the direction of the flow, there are still many, many things about tornadoes that do not make sense. So the model is not complete.

The next inexplicable fact to be taken into account is that a tornado is not always visible, and damaging or even deadly winds can occur when there is no other indication that a tornado is present.122 (See Figures 83 and 84.)

The lack of condensation at the surface in the presence of an extreme low pressure is, of course, not what we would expect. There wouldn't be a thunderstorm if it were not for the moist air in the lower troposphere. And if there is a humidity gradient in the lower troposphere, we would expect the most humid air to be closest to the surface, since it will be the coolest (and therefore the densest) air in the gradient. Especially in vortexes over the ocean, we would expect the humidity at the surface to be near 100%. Since tornadoes only draw in air from the surface, and since the pressure inside a tornado is lower than that inside a tropical cyclone,120,121,123,124 there should be no way that a tornado could form without causing condensation at the surface. Yet tornadoes without condensation at the surface are common, especially over the ocean.



Figure 83. Tornado in Lombok, Indonesia, 2007-12-29, courtesy Fadil Basymeleh.
Tornado in Lombok, Indonesia, 2007-12-29, courtesy Fadil Basymeleh.


Figure 84. Waterspout near Oran, Algeria, 2007-10-30, courtesy Nassimatique.
Waterspout near Oran, Algeria, 2007-10-30, courtesy Nassimatique.

The standard model explains that such tornadoes are being fed by warm, dry air (such as from the RFD) that will not yield condensation even in the extreme low pressure at the base of the tornado.109,110 The EMHD model agrees, and goes on to say that the air is also positively-charged. The positive charge reduces the chance of condensation, because the electrons necessary for covalent bonding are not present. Also, the water molecules might be so highly charged that the electrostatic repulsion between them is further discouraging condensation.

But both models then have an even tougher question to answer. How does condensation form as the air ascends? Tornadoes only draw in air at the surface,119 so this is not evidence of a new source of moisture from the outside. The lowest pressure in a tornado is at the surface,120,121,123,124 so this is not evidence of a further decrease in pressure. The fastest wind speeds in the tornado are nearest the surface,125,126,127,128 so this is not evidence of an increase in tangential velocity that could cause condensation. If water vapor in the tornadic inflow doesn't condense in the extreme low pressure at the surface, it's not going to condense, ever.

Only the EMHD model can explain this. If the tornadic inflow is positively-charged, and if something in the upper portion of the tornado is neutralizing that charge, condensation will become possible that was not possible at the surface. Neutralizing a positive charge would, of course, take a flow of electrons from the cloud down through the tornado. There is certainly no absence of negative charge inside the cloud, and there is well-known direct evidence of an electric current inside tornadoes, which has been estimated at 100~250 amps.24,36,101,102 The electrons in such a current will eliminate the electrostatic repulsion between positively-charged water molecules, and make covalent bonding possible. This will trigger the condensation of the water vapor that could not condense before.

There have been a couple of cases in which condensation occurred only at the surface, but these appear to be exceptions that prove the rule. First, click Figure 85 to watch the associated video, or click this to watch it on YouTube. A dust sheath forms on the ground, and the video briefly pans upward to show the rope-like condensation funnel coming down from the cloud. But the rotation at the surface doesn't last long, and the dust sheath starts to fall apart. Look closely at the very end of the video — a bunch of condensation forms at the surface. Ordinarily, more condensation means lower pressure, and this would tend to indicate that the vortex is strengthening, but this vortex is at the end of its cycle. It's possible that the vortex ran out of charged air, resulting in more condensation and the dissipation of the vortex.



Figure 85. Condensation forming as the dust sheath falls apart, courtesy Jim Reed and Katie Bay.
Condensation forming as the dust sheath falls apart, courtesy Jim Reed and Katie Bay.

For a second example, click this to watch the video from which Figure 86 was taken. (This is one of the best videos ever taken of a tornado.) In this case, there was no dust sheath, and at the time of the screen grab, there was condensation at the surface that lasted for several seconds. The fact that the condensation evaporated as the air ascended proves that the pressure was increasing, in the direction of the flow. So there was definitely a secondary low pressure at the surface, more powerful than the low pressure aloft (but smaller in volume). And as with the previous case, the presence of condensation would tend to indicate that the tornado was strengthening, but this occurred only in the last couple of seconds before the tornado disbanded altogether.


[youtube:2bvfnfu0]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MWs7R0qSDuo[/youtube]2bvfnfu0]
Figure 86. Tornado in Brooklyn Park, MN, 1986-07-18, courtesy KARE-11 Television.
Tornado in Brooklyn Park, MN, 1986-07-18, courtesy KARE-11 Television.

So the EMHD model maintains that tornadoes are not low-pressure condensation funnels at all, but rather, low-pressure electrically-neutralized condensation funnels, and the only exceptions occur when the supply of positive ions at the surface is depleted, in which case the existing flow field causes condensation only at the surface, and the tornado expires. With this framework, we can begin to explain properties of tornadoes to a level of specificity never attempted within existing models.

First, we can take a second look at Figure 84, and notice the peculiar orange color of the vortex. This is an unusual color for condensation, which is typically white (or gray if it's in the shade). Occasionally the clear slot in the cloud allows the tornado to become sunlit, and we get a better look at the actual color, which is not always white. If a tornado has a reddish tint, this is typically attributed (correctly) to the presence of ferric oxide in the red clay dust kicked up by the tornado. But this tornado over the water isn't kicking up any red clay dust. Since nitrogen, oxygen, and hydrogen have emission lines in the orange~red bands, the most plausible explanation is that positive ions are getting bombarded by electrons in this region.

Second, tornadoes that have yet to touch down sometimes have filaments of condensation pointing downward. (See Figure 87.) These are typically considered to be small sub-vortexes.129 But there is no evidence of any rotation within these filaments. If we take a close look at the video associated with Figure 74, we can see such filaments in motion, and a fluid dynamic explanation is unconvincing. As the tornado begins to touch down, a couple of filaments shoot down to the ground at an extremely rapid rate. An instantaneous drop in pressure that could cause such condensation, within such a narrowly-defined channel, is hard to believe. But if these filaments are evidence of electron streams shooting down from the cloud, the speed with which they can move, and the visible effect that they have, becomes easy to understand. The water vapor in positively-charged air subjected to an extreme low pressure will condense instantaneously if the necessary electrons become available. And an electron stream can very definitely stick to a narrowly-defined channel, as such fast-moving charges are subjected to the magnetic pinch effect.


Figure 87. Filamented tornado near La Grange, WY, 2009-06-05, courtesy Vortex 2.
Filamented tornado near La Grange, WY, 2009-06-05, courtesy Vortex 2.

Also in the video associated with Figure 74, we can see a streamer of condensation emerging from the ground shortly before the tornado touches down, and again, there is no evidence of rotation, so this is not a streamwise vortex at the boundary between static air outside the tornado and rotating air inside it. It makes more sense to consider that electrons emerged from the ground, neutralizing the charge in the positive double-layer, and thereby making condensation possible, as well as rapid upward motion.

Figure 88. Streamers of condensation emerging from the surface in Краснозаводск, RU, 2009-06-03, courtesy English Russia.
Streamers of condensation emerging from the surface in Краснозаводск, RU, 2009-06-03, courtesy English Russia.

Third, there have been a variety of reports of tornadoes glowing in the dark, like neon lights.27,130,131,132 Blue and orange are the colors that have been reported. Since a corona discharge in the presence of ionized nitrogen and oxygen produces such colors, the most likely explanation for this luminosity is that an electron stream is bombarding air molecules inside the tornado.

Figure 89. Two luminous tornadoes in Toledo, OH, 1965-04-11, courtesy James R. Weyer.
Two luminous tornadoes in Toledo, OH, 1965-04-11, courtesy James R. Weyer.

Corona discharges in air normally require electrostatic potentials in excess of 100 kV/m.133 So how does a corona discharge occur in the 5 kV/m of potential below a supercell? The answer is that the threshold for a corona discharge is a function of the resistance of the air, and this varies with pressure. Lower-pressure air is a better conductor, and therefore will support a corona discharge in a weaker electric field. Hence the pressure drop within a tornado makes corona discharges possible with 5 kV/m of potential.22,32

Fourth, eyewitnesses inside powerful tornadoes (who were lucky enough to survive) have reported seeing "fingers" or "rings" of continuous lightning at the top of the tornado.134,135,136 From the outside, there have been reports of continuous ring lightning at the top of the tornado.25,27,34,137 Reports of tornadic lightning are extremely rare, and because of this, thermodynamicists have dismissed the possibility of a causal role for electromagnetism in tornadogenesis.138 Such dismissals are based on the assumption that heat from lightning is the only way that electromagnetism could influence a thermal system. Actually, the EMHD model considers lightning and reentrant electromagnetism to be almost mutually exclusive. Regardless, there have been enough credible reports that the phenomena are to be considered real, and any comprehensive explanation of tornadoes has to demonstrate plausible conditions.

If there is a flow of electrons down through the tornado, sufficient in some cases to generate a glow discharge, it's also theoretically possible that the discharge could be robust enough to graduate into a sustained small-scale arc discharge. This would be fundamentally different from lightning, which is a rapid release of potentials on a large scale. In contrast, arc discharges at the tornado/mesocyclone interface would be small but continuous, as negative charges drawn into the mesocyclone interact with a steady stream of positive charges in the tornado.

29. A Complete Theory

The EMHD model has already acknowledged that an electric current causes resistive heating that increases the buoyancy of the air inside the tornado. Yet there is another significance to tornadic currents that has not been identified by any other framework, and which is a necessary component in a complete theory.

If the tornadic inflow is bearing an electric charge, we can understand why it clings to the surface of the Earth. But we still have to explain why the air breaks away from the surface inside the vortex. In fact, if we were considering such forces, and didn't know that the topic was tornadoes, we wouldn't predict that the vortex would extend all the way to the surface, and bind tightly to it. Rather, we would conclude that there would be a pool of air at the surface that wanted to stay there, and that the mesocyclone would get its inflow from somewhere else, because the electromagnetic and thermodynamic forces were in opposition.

So we are still shy of a convincing explanation of tornadoes, until we fully consider the effects of an electric current inside the tornado. If an initial reduction in pressure opens up a channel for the flow of electrons down from the cloud, this current will neutralize the positive charge that is binding the tornadic inflow to the surface. Hence the tornadic inflow is bound to the surface, until it gets inside the vortex. Then it is released from its electrostatic attraction to the surface, and can now respond freely to the low pressure aloft. And once inside the vortex, the air is subjected to hundreds of millions of watts of resistive heating. It had already picked up a couple (or several) million watts of heat from friction as the air moved along the surface. And the charge neutralization enables condensation inside the vortex, which releases latent heat. The buoyancy produced by the low pressure, and by all of the heat sources, then constitutes plenty of force to drag the inflow across the surface of the Earth and into the vortex.

Now we can look back at Figure 82, and in spite of the supporting evidence, proudly announce that such pressure gradients do not make any sense. Nature hates a vacuum, and low pressure distributes freely. Hence a concentrated low pressure does not come with a built-in explanation. Given the electrostatic attraction of the inflow to the surface, we would expect a low pressure at the centerline of the storm, but we would also expect a slow airflow in response to the low pressure aloft. And we would expect the airflow to be distributed. The concentrated low pressure, and rapid airflow, constitute direct evidence of other factors. Electrons in the cloud will be attracted to the positive charge in the air below, and will favor any low-pressure channels that might be present because of the increased conductivity. The flow of electrons through low-pressure channels will neutralize the positive charges therein, freeing the air to respond to the low pressure aloft. The upward flow decreases the pressure beneath it, which increases the conductivity, which encourages the electric current. Because the factors are mutually-enhancing, the effect will be concentrated rather than distributed.

So there is an electrostatic discharge inside the tornado, but it is not at all the same kind of discharge as researchers once believed. A tornado is not a simple discharge vortex surrounding an electric current between the cloud and the ground. Rather, the discharge is between the cloud and the charged air above the ground. The ground is only a factor because it can support an induced opposite charge and thereby attract the tornadic inflow to it, and because it introduces friction that further reduces the pressure at the centerline.

Indeed, a big problem with the discharge vortex theory was that it couldn't explain why tornadoes show no preference for highly conductive features on the ground, such as rivers & streams, railroad tracks, etc. But if the discharge is between the cloud and the air below it, then variances in the conductivity of the Earth won't make much difference. Overall, the air is attracted to the Earth by an induced electrostatic attraction, but freed from that attraction by the current inside the low-pressure channel descending from the cloud.

Now we can look back over the history of the study of tornadoes, and more clearly see the brick walls that impeded the progress of our understanding. Thermal fluxes following fluid dynamic principles are obviously present, and determining the nature of such forces in tornadic storms took a lot of work. Progress was slow because researchers were putting together a puzzle with a bunch of pieces missing, and there was no way to see the big picture. Now that we have so many data on tornadic supercells, there is no mistaking the fact that something is missing. We know the size and shape of the anomaly, and we know that there is only one candidate. It's not thermodynamics, and it's not electromagnetism. It can only be an interaction between the two — EMHD — that creates a third property set not possible within either regime by itself.

http://charles-chandler.org/Geophysics/ ... 20Main.php

[CrackSmokeRepublican]

Hurricane Erin, September 11, 2001




http://www.drjudywood.com/articles/erin/

[CrackSmokeRepublican]

Vid of Slowly forming Tornado in motion up close in Russia:

http://charles-chandler.org/Geophysics/ ... ado%29.php

[CrackSmokeRepublican]

Forest Patton et al. — Descending Mesocyclones

This theory states that a downdraft going through a bi-level charge structure in the middle of the cloud can create a downward-pointing cone, where the inner wall of the cone is negatively-charged, and the outer wall is positively-charged.44 Then a combination of latent heat release, centrifugal force, and electric force will draw the cone into a rapidly-rotating funnel cloud, that could descend to the ground and become a tornado.

Patton et al. do not seem to realize that some of the givens are mutually exclusive. They discuss rotating charges with centrifugal forces, and then they inject a downdraft into the mix, to create a cone. Then, as cold air in the downdraft meets warm air in the updraft, precipitation is generated, which is centrifuged out of the cone, drawing in more cold air from above, and warm air from below. But how were these charges rotating in the first place, and what keeps them rotating, such that the centrifugal force will perform as expected? In order for this theory to be credible, the force necessary to create and maintain the rotation has to be identified.
Richard Heene et al. — Magnetic Acceleration

This theory maintains that the rotation of charged particles around the updraft within the mesocyclone generates a magnetic field along the axis of the mesocyclone, and that below the cloud, this magnetic field projects down to the Earth, where it can accelerate magnetically-responsive particles at the surface toward the cloud. The acceleration of charged particles then accelerates the air, and this causes the low pressure within the tornado.206

It is certainly true that rotating electric charges will generate a magnetic field. (See Figure 147.) But it is naive to think that this will cause the robust updraft inside a tornado. Outside of the mesocyclone, the magnetic lines of force will splay, and the field density will diminish rapidly. At the surface, magnetic fields of roughly .2 gauss have been measured, which is surprisingly high, but is still low in comparison to the Earth's magnetic field, which is roughly .5 gauss. If a field density of .2 gauss could accelerate particles, why would there be any particles left at the surface, after the Earth's magnetic field had its wily way with them before the storm arrived? Furthermore, iron is the only element that is likely to be present and that is highly responsive to the magnetic force. But tornadoes are possible even where there is little to no iron present (such as in vortexes over the ocean). Above the surface, where the field will be stronger, there is only air. Nitrogen and oxygen are not responsive to magnetism. Water molecules are present, and these are diamagnetic, which means that in the presence of a magnetic field, the molecules become polarized and then can be accelerated by the field. But the effect is extremely weak, and it would take roughly 100,000 gauss to overcome gravity.207



Figure 147. Magnetic lines of force generated by rotating electric charges. Applet by Paul Falstad.
Magnetic lines of force generated by rotating electric charges. Applet by Paul Falstad.

Electric Universe — Ionosphere-Surface Current

This theory states that the Earth is negatively-charged, and that the atmosphere is a leaky capacitor, where there is a fair-weather current all of the time flowing from the Earth toward outer space, but that unique conditions can reduce the resistance within this capacitor, resulting in an enhanced current.208,209 One such condition would be the reduced pressure within a mesocyclone, which would increase the conductivity of the column of air from 1 km to over 12 km above the surface. This is only a fraction of the distance to the ionosphere, but it traverses the densest part of the atmosphere, and this is the source of 2⁄3 of the resistance between the surface and the ionosphere. Hence the mesocyclone could be opening up a conduit through which a current could flow.

The problem with this theory is that is does not explain vortexes that descend from non-mesocyclonic thunderstorms. It also does not take into account the fact that the global current is extremely weak. The "fair weather field" is something like .1 kV/m, which is vanishingly small compared to the fields in a thunderstorm. So it is far more likely that storm-generated fields are the only forces that could possibly be influential. It also labors under the same criticisms directed at the joule heating theory — the airflows in a discharge vortex are fundamentally different from those in a tornadic vortex.

http://charles-chandler.org/Geophysics/ ... .php#id_40