The Global Atmospheric Electrical Circuit and Climate

By Richard Harrison. 2004

150 citations recorded by the source corpus.

Evidence is emerging for physical links among clouds, global temperatures, the global atmospheric electrical circuit and cosmic ray ionisation. The global circuit extends throughout the atmosphere from the planetary surface to the lower layers of the ionosphere. Cosmic rays are the principal source of atmospheric ions away from the continental boundary layer: the ions formed permit a vertical conduction current to flow in the fair weather part of the global circuit. Through the (inverse) solar modulation of cosmic rays, the resulting columnar ionisation changes may allow the global circuit to convey a solar influence to meteorological phenomena of the lower atmosphere. Electrical effects on non-thunderstorm clouds have been proposed to occur via the ion-assisted formation of ultra-fine aerosol, which can grow to sizes able to act as cloud condensation nuclei, or through the increased ice nucleation capability of charged aerosols. Even small atmospheric electrical modulations on the aerosol size distribution can affect cloud properties and modify the radiative balance of the atmosphere, through changes communicated globally by the atmospheric electrical circuit. Despite a long history of work in related areas of geophysics, the direct and inverse relationships between the global circuit and global climate remain largely quantitatively unexplored. From reviewing atmospheric electrical measurements made over two centuries and possible paleoclimate proxies, global atmospheric electrical circuit variability should be expected on many timescales.

Subfields: Astronomy and Astrophysics, Global and Planetary Change

View Paper: https://www.semanticscholar.org/paper/d4f89eef6c798a90825f6397b849dd56ee7e8a46

How researchers see this paper

The researchers whose trusted networks rank it highest, strongest advocate first. Every researcher gets a different order.

In Astronomy and Astrophysics

1. Earle Williams
2. Richard Harrison
3. B. Tinsley
4. Ulrich Schumann
5. H. Huntrieser
6. Galina Bazilevskaya
7. Y. Gallet
8. T. Mather

In Global and Planetary Change

1. Earle Williams
2. B. Tinsley
3. Ulrich Schumann
4. H. Huntrieser
5. Richard Harrison
6. T. Mather
7. Y. Gallet
8. V. Courtillot

Citations in the corpus

• Are there connections between the Earth's magnetic field and climate? (2007, background): “The near cloud mechanism relies on the production of ice nuclei in the vicinity of clouds (even if these are not thunderstorm clouds) induced by the perturbation in the global atmospheric electrical circuit due to the ionization of the atmosphere by the GCR flux [47,48,45].”
• The global atmospheric electric circuit and its effects on cloud microphysics (2008, background): “A comparison of h averages of PG measurements in September 1928 made simultaneously at Eskdalemuir, Scotland, and at sea in the western Atlantic (Torreson et al 1946) showed only a moderate correlation (0.56) in a selected period of five days (Harrison 2004b).”
• Electrification of volcanic plumes (2006, background): “The electrification of thunderstorms has been known since the 17th century (Harrison 2004a) but some fundamental aspects remain poorly understood.”
• The global lightning-induced nitrogen oxides source (2007, background): “Positive correlations between surface temperature, lightning activity, and the global 25 electric circuit have been identified from observations at daily to interannual time scales (Williams, 1992, 2005; Harrison, 2004).”
• Cosmic Ray Induced Ion Production in the Atmosphere (2008, background): “From the late eighteenth century it was known that an electric field continually existed in the fair weather atmosphere, and air had a finite electrical conductivity (Harrison 2004).”
• The Carnegie Curve (2013, unknown): “The sensing electrode or ‘‘collector’’ used to acquire the air’s local electric potential was initially typically a flame or elevated point (Harrison 2004a).”
• The global electrical circuit: A review (2009, background): “As noted by Harrison (2004b), the absolute values of electric field between the ocean and land measurements differ appreciably (more than a factor-of-two), and this difference is attributable to well established differences in aerosol and associated air conductivity, as is also discussed in the…”