Distribution of electrical particles

Discussion in 'Earth Science' started by Dale, Mar 22, 2012.

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  1. Aqueous Id flat Earth skeptic Valued Senior Member

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    The presence of ions in the ionosphere is one thing. The fact that they form layers is another. Still another is that the position of the layers is influenced by the solar wind and ejecta. Still another is that the layers tend to absorb or reflect RF according to frequency. Still another is the variation in height of the layers, and their density, as a function of the angle to the solar wind. The non-ionized layers of the atmosphere are not involved. Sunlight and moonlight are irrelevant. It's the direction of the solar wind that matters, which we observe locally as the relative position of the sun.
    All you need is study and observation. Beliefs are mostly useless.

    By contrast scientists tend to trust their beliefs less and to trust the evidence more.
    Ideas like usefulness, film-structure and hoisting make no sense.

    If you've already made your mind up, why open a discussion with people here, especially scientists?
    Is there a propagation myth that you intend to bust? Is there no valid science for you to refer to?
    Not sure what you mean.
    "Ignorant natives" :bugeye:
    "blessed science" :shrug:
    "obfuscation"

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    This is a place for intelligent discussion. In part that relies on not assuming too much and checking oneself for accuracy. This also assumes a kind of responsibility - one that seeks to avoid posting fallacies so other folks won't be misled into believing them.
    There have been several attempts to lead you to certain information you lack. You fail to recognize the talent of the folks who've taken time to help you understand.
     
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  3. Dale Geriatric friend of trolls Registered Senior Member

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    Thanks for extending further patience with a difficult student.
    I am a care-giver here, and will have to make my responses piecemeal.

    The outer surface of any electrically isolated body of negative electrical charge will harbor an electron for every excess electron hosted by that body. I have found sufficient evidence to be convinced that the earth bears such an electrical charge. Often, a scientist who might disagree will see himself as knowing better and disapprove of me for thinking otherwise.

    I believe that Earth's outer surface is somewhat a bubble formation of electrons. All matter below it would be of macroscopic electrical neutrality, despite the dynamically sustained distribution of negative ions. For brevity, detailed explanation of how that happens is held as beyond the scope of this disclosure. The only reason for the elevation (re "hoisted") of that bubble at the top is that each particle is held aloft by repulsion from the three dimensional array of ions below.

    It would seem that any electron above the bubble would be repelled upwards far away. I do not know whether such electrons would escape the earth completely or if they might form an additional layer aloft. Any second layer might be detectable from any echo or ghost reflection.

    The alternative hypothesis mentioned above is not intended as an immediate presentation. Conviction on the matter brings me to see the present convoluted quest for "charge separation" mechanisms to explain atmospheric electricity as a ginned-up story. Pointless incoherent scatterings of irrelevant ionospheric lore go on and on until it outlasts anybody's attention span.

    Surely I am not the first, but I propose that if it were not for the dynamics of some 100 strokes of lightning per second on this planet, the fair weather current of some 2 pico amps per square meter would go to zero and would no longer produce the nominal +100 volts per meter of atmospheric elevation that for so long has been mistaken as a manifestation of positive charge by professional scientists.

    Gotta go now.

    [/QUOTE]
     
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  5. Dale Geriatric friend of trolls Registered Senior Member

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  7. Aqueous Id flat Earth skeptic Valued Senior Member

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    I think you are mixing apples and oranges, by mixing ions and electrons, the ionosphere and the atmosphere, conduction and induction, fields and currents, electrostatics and electrodynamics, absorption and reflection, among other things, and you have been left to express your dissatisfaction with the state of knowledge of these, or of the people who have something to say about them, whether they are experts or not. For the most part you should be able to get past that dissatisfaction by trying to understand it better.

    In any case, this thread is a good opportunity to discuss electricity which is interesting to anyone with or without a background in science.

    For the same reason that nature abhors a vacuum, it abhors a free electron. You should be addressing ions as the charge carriers in the atmosphere rather than electrons. Without putting words in Trippy's mouth, I think that's mainly what he was suggesting.

    You should regard the ionosphere as a site of ion generation as well as a physical layer whose shape is molded by the solar wind, either directly or through the effects on the magnetosphere. You already know that the ionosphere has sublayers that absorb or reflect HF radio waves according to frequency. If you understand resonance then the frequency variability will be easier to understand. The reason these layers appear to a radio operator to shift, bend, disappear and reappear, is because of his diurnal rotation with respect to the solar wind, but also due to irregularities in the rate of solar particle emission. It has nothing to do with daylight or moonlight per se, and everthing to do with the bombardment of the earth by particles from the sun, and the deflection of the magnetosphere under the loading presented by these particles.

    Ion generation can be attributed to absorption of light energy in air, such as the formation of ozone at ground level by the action of ultraviolet light on oxygen, or by the more severe ionizing radiation at the outer layers, as well as the consequences of solar particle bombardment at the outer layers. The earth also releases ions into the air, as do living organisms.

    Whether or not the earth's surface is properly modeled as a Faraday Cage, it's an ionic soup, and here again the abundance of free ions is an affinity of nature whereas it abhors free electrons.

    I doubt there is a single definitive cause for the presence of atmospheric electricity, but a likely cause is solar radiation and particle bombardment, the geodynamo and its induced magnetic field, and free ions, all of these acting together as a system, with additional contributions from incidental sources, like chemical and biological outgassing, and the effect of friction by surface winds.
     
  8. origin Heading towards oblivion Valued Senior Member

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    11,888
    It is not the 'beloved consensus' it is actual measurements that are important. The measurments show that the atmosphere is positively charged. So your assumption is not correct.

    Source

    The fairweather electric field discovered by Lemonnier and Beccaria
    (see Chapter 1.2) is almost entirely due to the excess of positive ions
    over negative ions in the atmosphere.

    Source
    On a clear day (fair weather), a relatively small
    number of positive ions exist in the atmosphere
    that give rise to an electric field on the order of
    -100 to -200 V/m.

    Source
    Experiments have shown that there is always free electricity in the atmosphere, which is sometimes negative and sometimes positive, but most generally positive

    Your six decades of experience were not able to be translated to the unique behaviour of the atmosphere apparently.

    Huh? Do you have any evidence for this.

    Are you really saying that a positive charge would be attracted to the positively charged sphere and the electron would be repeled by the positive sphere?

    If electrons are moving upward it is becasue there is a positive charge up there.
     
  9. Dale Geriatric friend of trolls Registered Senior Member

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    You advance in defense of a non sequitor. It had seemed irrelevant that an initial critique cited ionization within the ionosphere in the presence of ultraviolet solar radiation as though such transient status of matter contributed to the electrical charge upon the earth. Ionization is an endothermic process. There are people devoting their lives trying to explain lightning formation in terms of charge-separation. I think they waste their time and some of them, my tax dollars. Astute scientists confess to be flabbergasted about the subject, but few seem as kind as Richard Feynman was about hearing out a common man.

    We do seem to share the notion that solar wind would be mostly of electrons. Protons would be unlikely to share immediate quarters with electrons at the solar surface. It simply seems to me that if such a wind could push thin atmosphere around, our satellites would feel more drag than have. Rather, the arrival of those particles would seem the reason for us to share the electrical polarity of our sun. I take the tear-drop shape of the atmosphere to represent the effect of mutual repulsion between two great bodies. If I do not have the means of assuring that difference, courteous communications I seek could lend me a hand.

    It was never my point that, wow, ultraviolet light ionizes some stuff in the ionosphere, as though that is why the ionosphere works its wonders. Where is all that ultraviolet on the night-side when indeed we get all that long distance communications? As though we needed fresh ions for conduction out where all those extra electrons hang out. My point was that we don't need ionizations to have a smooth conducting surface up there, and a bubble made up of electrons, I submit, is what we have in place if the ionizations would just get out of the way. If Wiki writers remain protected from exposure to other points of view, and if I were ever to prove correct, then it would have been their stories that were made up! Nothing can be more mediocre than to confine people's thinking to stuff still stuck in the old bandwagon. Hope our young do better than shed droppings through green tail-feathers.




    Contemplation is a form of study available for original thought. Astrophysics (Earth is just the closest specimen of our galaxy) gets a little tricky for invisible particles light years away or some four thousand miles below. Some things do become more evident with the bigger picture, but who can drag it all into the laboratory? I just began applying the word "belief" so as not to be so presumptuous as to call it "knowledge" before hearing out appropriate critique.



    I did well to do so. James R aced my question that I had posed in awkward evasion of cries of "Hey Rube" or "A blasphemer!". I feared tar and feathers but had to ask. However, it seldom seemed that all others who followed were scientists. I am new to the earth in that this is still my first incarnation. All I can do is my poor best.

    There is a lot of conflicting information about electric charge of our planet. Written words in lofty terms have horrified me. Some declare it unthinkable for our planet or anything to have an imbalance of charged particles. How, then do they hold to that notion in the face of electron beams extending to astronomical distances? I mean if you think about it. A meteorologist became hostile when I proposed that Earth held more electrons: He asserted that voltage measurements taken of the atmosphere for 150 years proved the air to be short of electrons. He was talking about voltage measurements taken across the flow of electrons (upward) through the resistance of the air. That was just voltage drop due to fair weather current responding to the earth's negative charge! I found I had blasphemed before a high priest of science. Go figure, but remember Carl Sagan's good council. There are no authorities in science. I find plenty of them here if you will forgive my saying so.


    Could you specify where I have failed to so so?

    My question is, how do you know just who is so lacking?
    Hate to be so ungrateful, but I did not realize that so many meant so well. It is hard to tell.
     
  10. Dale Geriatric friend of trolls Registered Senior Member

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    118
    You complain if I repeat myself. Read everything I write and it should bring you around. I was not making assumptions. You or your source are mistaken.

    Appearances can be deceiving. Maybe you are just an awful lot smarter than I am. Could you state your IQ?

    I have no ready evidence for you about the windows, so please do disregard that warning. Please!

    No: The positive charge within a positively charged globe is repelled by the greater repulsion from the greater portion of the globe centered beyond the center. It is counter-intuitive, so think hard. Conversely, an electron within such a globe is attracted toward the greater attraction centered far beyond the center of the globe.


    And, no, there is no positive charge up there in the air on nice days. Possibly, there is a stigma to understanding of electricity in some scientific circles. As a big employer of meteorologists, maybe the U.S. government stipulates a lot of what their candidates are taught. My taxes are taken from me and given to some well paid geniuses up there god bless them.
     
  11. Aqueous Id flat Earth skeptic Valued Senior Member

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    6,152
    But you also realize it takes a lot of effort to get electrons to go into emission, and the CRT is evacuated to promote their mean-free path. I think you'll have a hard time finding a similar source of electron emission. Look instead into the ionizing UV that dominates the outer atmosphere.

    You mean a window to a building? This isn't clear. I can't make sense of it.
    Ok, so you're thinking there is some better way to protect a building against lightning strikes? Lightning rods and discharge tubes seem to solve that problem.

    You mean positive and negative repel each other? I think your analysis would go better if you were to recognize that net charge accumulates at the outer surface and the inner volume is electrically neutral. (Ignoring skin depth.)

    I doubt it. Look for mobility among ions, with mobility increasing as you gain altitude (density decreases).

    No, there's no absolute bar against "exporting" particles, just gravity to hold them, on average, against the magnetic field that circulates them, and under the effects of their own kinetic energy and disturbances such as the solar wind and ejecta. On average, the number of positive ions that escape gravity is lower than the number of electrons, due to the higher mass of the ions. Therefore the net charge on the ionosphere is positive.
     
  12. Dale Geriatric friend of trolls Registered Senior Member

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    118
    I believe but am reluctant to reveal that the electric field of a black hole's accretion disk points upward. As though a loose core to a galaxy, that domain develops within a galaxy from protons descending toward th galactic center. I will deny telling you that when they come with tar and feathers. Within the disk, if it has not grown too fat to be a disk, it is electrons that go inward. They aim not to the black hole but for the rotational axis of the disk and then repel away, guided along the axis as the locus of equidistance to the extreme positive charge at the rim of the disk. Nature Magazine refused to publish my theory, and I refuse to report that they had just put out an alternate theory: a competing dog in the same race. I like my theory better.
    [/QUOTE]



    Yes I mean - -to a building. Lightning rods are just ducky. Even if you have them, you push your luck with an open window besides the downside of incoming rain. One day a few years back some forked lightning hit two houses simultaneously: one two houses to our North and the other two houses to the South. Wish I knew if they had open windows, but I will not lie.
    [/QUOTE]


    No. The grass is greener on the other side. The test charge is pushed into the closest surface due to greater push from across the way. A proton would feel a little silly to be the only proton to run for the middle. He is coerced into following the crowd. I know the lonely feeling.
    [/QUOTE]
    Me no savvy you here. But I am remiss in not stipulating that in the atmosphere, I expect the migration of particles of either charge is a piggy-back propagation. An electron rising from the ground wold soon induce a near-side positive and then jump in. Then it would be propagation all the way.
    [/QUOTE]


    "Barring" was part of a figure of speech. I only meant that if we exclude consideration of such events, we do not change the total electric charge when molecules get split as ions.
     
  13. Aqueous Id flat Earth skeptic Valued Senior Member

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    6,152
    Here's an example of where your tax dollars went:

    http://plasmasphere.nasa.gov/
     
  14. origin Heading towards oblivion Valued Senior Member

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    11,888
    So you have no evidence and your argument against my evidence is "your source are mistaken". No counter evidence no reason just a flat usopported denial - at least you are consistent.

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    I really do not know my IQ. Smart enough to get through a ChemE program at Cornell but definately not the top student.

    Done.

    Is this one of your 'senior moments' you talked about, because this makes no sense.

    Again you simply dismiss all of the measurements and real science that has been done with no evidence and no explanation as to why you think that. Not to mention that your ideas are nonsensical because even a highschool student knows that the electrons should be moving towards an area that is less negative, not more negative!

    So not only do your ideas go against the actual measurements they are counter to physics.

    Dale my geriatric friend you haven't got a leg to stand on.
     
  15. Dale Geriatric friend of trolls Registered Senior Member

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    origin: Your ad hominem generalities against me continue to conform to a predictable pattern. I have recently made a request to you that you should present any justification at all for your abusive generalities against a particular posting of mine, and I subsequently suggested that as long as you continue to ignore that request, I could not take your messages seriously. I dare say that it would be so much nicer if you were not here.
     
  16. Dale Geriatric friend of trolls Registered Senior Member

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    My point about the tax dollars reflects upon my regrets that the civil servant who wields so much influence upon what is taught in certain college courses (due to the natural influence of a nearly exclusive employer for certain pursuits) seems to bow to some stigma against deeming electricity as part of the cosmic infrastructure.

    It could be that I am the fool. Occam's razor points in that direction. An answer to my puzzle would set me free. My puzzle is this: If Earth's electric field and the sun's electric field point downward, then why should we not expect positive charges to propagate down toward the centers of both orbs?
     
  17. origin Heading towards oblivion Valued Senior Member

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    11,888
    I am simply supplying evidence that refutes your idea of a negatively charged atmosphere and asking for you to support your position. My negative replies to some of your statements is due to the fact that they do not contain any scientific substance.

    Which I have done, and you dismiss them out of hand with NO justification. You arrogantly state 'they are wrong'. I happen to believe you are wrong. The difference between our positions is that I have evidence that you are wrong and you do not have anything but your opinion.

    You can choose to do whatever you like. But it is disingenuous to state I have not supplied justification for my position. You have chosen to ignore the evidence and decided to go with your beliefs in the face of counter evidence - again, you can do whatever you want, but don't expect me to or anyone to accept your beliefs.

    Just to add one positive thing - I was not aware of the phenomena of Fair Weather Current until you brought it up, and I thank you for that. I enjoy learning something new.
     
  18. Trippy ALEA IACTA EST Staff Member

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    10,890
    Because, as has already been pointed out to you, photoionization is only part of the story, and was never forwarded as anything more than part of the story that you were missing.

    If you want proof of the role of photoionization, you only need to look as far as sudden ionospheric disturbances, and the simultaneity between these and the observation of x-ray flares on the sun.

    Sudden ionospheric disturbances occur when the light from the sun reaches us, not the protons and electrons, and the currents generated can be substantial enough to disturb the terrestrial magnetic field (crochet).

    The best known example of this is the Carrington Event, which led to Aurora as far south as Hawaii and Havana.
     
  19. Dale Geriatric friend of trolls Registered Senior Member

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    Thanks for clearing that up. I have been aware of how and why sunspots are produced and of some of their repercussions. Almost every explanation of the ionosphere I ever hear seems loaded with non sequiturs. The specific wonder attributed to the ionosphere that falls so far beyond my attention span is the clean uncluttered reflection of night-time short wave reception. It takes a relatively flat, smooth surface to bounce such a signal.

    My conviction that an electron bubble around the earth explains such propagation, and if that is true, a contradictory consensus might lead us into the convoluted rationale I think we hear.
     
  20. Trippy ALEA IACTA EST Staff Member

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    10,890
    There is no convoluted rationale. It's pretty straight forward actually.

    Photoionization and solar wind bombardment of the upper atmosphere cause it to build up and excess of free electrons.

    Specifically, between 60km and 90km the atmosphere reaches a high enough density that absorption, and subsequent photoionization of nitiric oxide by Lyman-Alpha radiation from the sun, combined with absorption of of hard x-rays. This layer has a high electron collision rate, which results in signal attenuation during the day time. The reason why the reflection is improved during the night time is because (obviously) as there is no sunlight on the nightside, this layer recombines (or discharges, if you prefer), and so the amount of attenuation in this layer decreases, and the efficiency of the reflection increases.

    Solar proton events can lead to an enhancement of the D-layer in the polar regionsm and, needless to say, these solar proton events result in radio blackouts at high latitudes.

    Addendum: IPS Radio and Space Services Ionospheric Map has a real time map of ionospheric reflection. The first map shows the maximum frequency that will be reflected by the F-layer as a function of location, the second map shows the virtual height of the F layer as a function of location.

    Further addendum: As part of their living with a star program, NASA released a plugin for Google Earth which gives you real time updates (updated every 10 minutes IIRC) on the status and state of the ionosphere. Link.
     
    Last edited: May 1, 2012
  21. Dale Geriatric friend of trolls Registered Senior Member

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    Lets just say that the proper scientists have pretty much got most everything all cut and dried. There is hardly anything left for us to say unless we want to quote a few rocket scientists.
     
  22. Trippy ALEA IACTA EST Staff Member

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    Do you have any evidence that contradicts anything that has been said to you?
     
  23. Dale Geriatric friend of trolls Registered Senior Member

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    Not at all and thank you for your point of view. I will take the time to look at the sources you gave to me. I have encountered controversy about such a fundamental consideration as the electrical charge upon the earth and its atmosphere. Evidence does seem subject to misinterpretation. For instance, I find reports of positive atmospheric charge to be clarified by axioms presumed for absence of any overall charge upon a planet. I find people confident that within a sphere charged to a given polarity, a charged particle within of that same polarity would be repelled by the closest inner surface. Others, believe as I do that such a particle would find greater repulsion from the opposite direction.

    I see the fair weather current as a manifestation of a negatively charged Earth and atmosphere. More folks deny that but science is not consensus. I have no doubt of the descriptions you cite for the ionosphere, but time will tell if such details will unfold the truths I seek.

    I fail to understand why people interpret voltage drop developed along the path of rising fair weather electrons to be represent the ionic polarity of the atmosphere. Ohm's law explains that no matter what material serves as conductor. Knowing the height of a given layer in the air does not connect me what the gross results amount to.

    For instance, most but not all believe that lightning brings more electrons down than up. How strange that seems if we take the atmosphere to be deficient of electrons? Worthy scholars boast of ignorance of how lightning is developed. They spend lifetimes concocting means for the charge separation they take to be required. Yet, no such thing would be required for an atmosphere bearing negative ions: Just push them together to store electrical energy.

    All this ties in to explanations of the ionosphere that solve a problem that might not really exist. I really believe that we have to go way back to straighten out our fundamentals. Those of us that attempt that are resisted by folks who think science is all in the bandwagon. Carl Sagan's baloney detector covers the subject very well.
     
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