Does electrostatic charge keep a cloud up?
"Rodney Blackall" wrote
...
In article , Szczepan Białek
wrote:
SNIP
You seem to have drawn some interesting replies to your question,
including a number who seem to be doing it the hard way.
Anti-gravity or electrostatic effects are not necessary.
But I see small problem. The hot smoke. In the sunny days it goes
straight up but under clouds do not..
In convective conditions warm smoke will rise; Cloudy conditions are often
stable and smoke plume would have to be very warm and large (e.g. from
power
station) to rise far.
But the smoke from small house chimney is much easy to examine.
[Snip]
If the cloud continues to grow, other processes take over. The cloud
droplets will eventually grow by collision with each other, but surface
tension
Here also could have an effect the voltage which is raising when
droplets grow.
Why? Does it?
I wrote about it:
" I remember reading an article about electrical charge dispersal in the
open atmosphere.ruling out that it can build up in clouds to the
extent that it causes lightning.
You must recognise the charge from the voltage. The charge cannot build up.
But when the droplets join together the voltage is raising (capacitance of
sphere) and it can cause lightning."
Capacitance of the sphere is proportional to the radius of a sphere - the
volume to r^3.
[Snip]
Under favourable circumstances it is possible to get heavier rain
After lightning rain is heavier.
But only sometimes. Lightning may discharge voltage through 10 km of
cloud;
it takes a LONG time for even a large raindrop to fall 1 km.
Anyway cloud must discharge the voltage before fall down as rain.
[Snip]
Vigorous convective clouds with strong up and down currents in them can
produce other exciting things such as hail and torrential downpours,
but that is another story...
Here also the charge in the clouds could have an effect. Air currents
and electric currents work together.
No. Strong air currents are needed to generate the electric field.
To generate the electric field the charge are needed.
On the question:
"I did some searching and it is said that warm rising air keeps clouds up.
Is it possible the static
charge in the clouds could also have an effect?"
Your answer was:
"There is a semi-permanent "fair weather field" of several hundred volts per
metre near ground level that does not seem to have much effect on anything."
How much - this is a question.
S*
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