Michael J. Rycroft , Anna Odzimek , R. Giles Harrison
{"title":"通过建模和观测确定全球大气电路的时间常数","authors":"Michael J. Rycroft , Anna Odzimek , R. Giles Harrison","doi":"10.1016/j.jastp.2024.106267","DOIUrl":null,"url":null,"abstract":"<div><p>The DC global electric circuit (GEC) distributes charge in the lower atmosphere by current flow between “generator regions” (thunderstorms and rain clouds) and “load regions” (distant conductive air), with a timescale defined by circuit properties. Previously, the load has only been modelled by assuming fair weather (FW) conditions, neglecting cloud. As stratiform clouds cover ∼30 % of the Earth's surface, load resistance has been added to represent them, considered to provide semi fair weather (semi-FW) conditions. This increases the GEC timescale by 9 % for stratocumulus, or 33 % for stratus at a lower level. Including mutual capacitance between the outer charged layer and an electrode representing stratocumulus clouds increases the timescale by 35 %, to 8.6 min. These modelled results - the first including the semi-FW aspects - are demonstrated to be consistent with experimentally determined timescales of the real GEC, of between 7 and 12 min, derived from volcanic lightning variations associated with the May 2011 Grímsvötn eruption in Iceland. Accounting for semi-FW circumstances improves the modelled representation of the natural global circuit. Further, the GEC timescale is comparable with cloud droplet charging timescales in the updrafts of extensive layer clouds, suggesting its possible relevance to the microphysical behaviour of stratiform (layer) clouds in the climate system.</p></div>","PeriodicalId":15096,"journal":{"name":"Journal of Atmospheric and Solar-Terrestrial Physics","volume":null,"pages":null},"PeriodicalIF":1.8000,"publicationDate":"2024-05-31","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S1364682624000956/pdfft?md5=308c039835571e88593f6da69eefc695&pid=1-s2.0-S1364682624000956-main.pdf","citationCount":"0","resultStr":"{\"title\":\"Determining the time constant of the global atmospheric electric circuit through modelling and observations\",\"authors\":\"Michael J. Rycroft , Anna Odzimek , R. Giles Harrison\",\"doi\":\"10.1016/j.jastp.2024.106267\",\"DOIUrl\":null,\"url\":null,\"abstract\":\"<div><p>The DC global electric circuit (GEC) distributes charge in the lower atmosphere by current flow between “generator regions” (thunderstorms and rain clouds) and “load regions” (distant conductive air), with a timescale defined by circuit properties. Previously, the load has only been modelled by assuming fair weather (FW) conditions, neglecting cloud. As stratiform clouds cover ∼30 % of the Earth's surface, load resistance has been added to represent them, considered to provide semi fair weather (semi-FW) conditions. This increases the GEC timescale by 9 % for stratocumulus, or 33 % for stratus at a lower level. Including mutual capacitance between the outer charged layer and an electrode representing stratocumulus clouds increases the timescale by 35 %, to 8.6 min. These modelled results - the first including the semi-FW aspects - are demonstrated to be consistent with experimentally determined timescales of the real GEC, of between 7 and 12 min, derived from volcanic lightning variations associated with the May 2011 Grímsvötn eruption in Iceland. Accounting for semi-FW circumstances improves the modelled representation of the natural global circuit. Further, the GEC timescale is comparable with cloud droplet charging timescales in the updrafts of extensive layer clouds, suggesting its possible relevance to the microphysical behaviour of stratiform (layer) clouds in the climate system.</p></div>\",\"PeriodicalId\":15096,\"journal\":{\"name\":\"Journal of Atmospheric and Solar-Terrestrial Physics\",\"volume\":null,\"pages\":null},\"PeriodicalIF\":1.8000,\"publicationDate\":\"2024-05-31\",\"publicationTypes\":\"Journal Article\",\"fieldsOfStudy\":null,\"isOpenAccess\":false,\"openAccessPdf\":\"https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S1364682624000956/pdfft?md5=308c039835571e88593f6da69eefc695&pid=1-s2.0-S1364682624000956-main.pdf\",\"citationCount\":\"0\",\"resultStr\":null,\"platform\":\"Semanticscholar\",\"paperid\":null,\"PeriodicalName\":\"Journal of Atmospheric and Solar-Terrestrial Physics\",\"FirstCategoryId\":\"89\",\"ListUrlMain\":\"https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S1364682624000956\",\"RegionNum\":4,\"RegionCategory\":\"地球科学\",\"ArticlePicture\":[],\"TitleCN\":null,\"AbstractTextCN\":null,\"PMCID\":null,\"EPubDate\":\"\",\"PubModel\":\"\",\"JCR\":\"Q3\",\"JCRName\":\"GEOCHEMISTRY & GEOPHYSICS\",\"Score\":null,\"Total\":0}","platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":null,"PeriodicalName":"Journal of Atmospheric and Solar-Terrestrial Physics","FirstCategoryId":"89","ListUrlMain":"https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S1364682624000956","RegionNum":4,"RegionCategory":"地球科学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":null,"EPubDate":"","PubModel":"","JCR":"Q3","JCRName":"GEOCHEMISTRY & GEOPHYSICS","Score":null,"Total":0}
Determining the time constant of the global atmospheric electric circuit through modelling and observations
The DC global electric circuit (GEC) distributes charge in the lower atmosphere by current flow between “generator regions” (thunderstorms and rain clouds) and “load regions” (distant conductive air), with a timescale defined by circuit properties. Previously, the load has only been modelled by assuming fair weather (FW) conditions, neglecting cloud. As stratiform clouds cover ∼30 % of the Earth's surface, load resistance has been added to represent them, considered to provide semi fair weather (semi-FW) conditions. This increases the GEC timescale by 9 % for stratocumulus, or 33 % for stratus at a lower level. Including mutual capacitance between the outer charged layer and an electrode representing stratocumulus clouds increases the timescale by 35 %, to 8.6 min. These modelled results - the first including the semi-FW aspects - are demonstrated to be consistent with experimentally determined timescales of the real GEC, of between 7 and 12 min, derived from volcanic lightning variations associated with the May 2011 Grímsvötn eruption in Iceland. Accounting for semi-FW circumstances improves the modelled representation of the natural global circuit. Further, the GEC timescale is comparable with cloud droplet charging timescales in the updrafts of extensive layer clouds, suggesting its possible relevance to the microphysical behaviour of stratiform (layer) clouds in the climate system.
期刊介绍:
The Journal of Atmospheric and Solar-Terrestrial Physics (JASTP) is an international journal concerned with the inter-disciplinary science of the Earth''s atmospheric and space environment, especially the highly varied and highly variable physical phenomena that occur in this natural laboratory and the processes that couple them.
The journal covers the physical processes operating in the troposphere, stratosphere, mesosphere, thermosphere, ionosphere, magnetosphere, the Sun, interplanetary medium, and heliosphere. Phenomena occurring in other "spheres", solar influences on climate, and supporting laboratory measurements are also considered. The journal deals especially with the coupling between the different regions.
Solar flares, coronal mass ejections, and other energetic events on the Sun create interesting and important perturbations in the near-Earth space environment. The physics of such "space weather" is central to the Journal of Atmospheric and Solar-Terrestrial Physics and the journal welcomes papers that lead in the direction of a predictive understanding of the coupled system. Regarding the upper atmosphere, the subjects of aeronomy, geomagnetism and geoelectricity, auroral phenomena, radio wave propagation, and plasma instabilities, are examples within the broad field of solar-terrestrial physics which emphasise the energy exchange between the solar wind, the magnetospheric and ionospheric plasmas, and the neutral gas. In the lower atmosphere, topics covered range from mesoscale to global scale dynamics, to atmospheric electricity, lightning and its effects, and to anthropogenic changes.