The Global Electrical Circuit: A Review.

The Global Electrical Circuit

1. The Global Electrical Circuit:
A Review
Earle Williams
MIT
International Conference on Atmospheric Electricity
Beijing, China
August 2007

2. Outline - Global Circuit
The two Global Circuits : How are they different?
Carnegie Curve vs Thunder Area
Robustness of Carnegie Curve for individual days
Effects of Bomb tests in the 50s and 60s
Long-term variations
Response of global circuit to global change

3. Two Versions of the Global Circuit

4. Classical Analysis of the
Global Electrical Circuit
Carnegie Curve
Thunder Area

5. Wilson (1920)
"Thunderclouds and shower clouds"
are the sources for the global current.

6. A common Assertion: Thunderstorms are
the batteries for the Global Circuit
Wallace et Hobbs (1977)
Williams ( 1988)
Blakeslee et al (1989)
Vonnegut (1991)
Bering et al (1998)
Rycroft at al (2000)
Reddell et al (2004)
Holzworth et al (2005)
Hayakawa et al (2006)
Kartalev et al (2005)
Nickolaenko et al (2006)
WILSON (1920) DID NOT MAKE THIS CLAIM

7. Distinctions in the
two Global Circuits

8. The Global Balance Sheet
(at Earth’s surface)
Fine Weather Current + 60 C
Precipitation + 30 C
Lightning - 20 C
Point Discharge - 100 C
Wormell (1930,1953)

9. Vertical continuity of current

10. Global Lightning is more Volatile than the
DC Global Circuit
Carnegie Curve OTD Analysis
OTD Analysis
Diurnal Time Scale
Ionospheric Potential
Annual Time Scale

11. Two hypotheses for American Dominance
over Africa in the Carnegie Curve
1) Current control by position of magnetic dip

equator (Kartalev et al, 2006).
2) Electrified shower curves in South America
dominate over Africa.

12. Measurements (Burns et al, 2005) and
Predictions (Kartalev et al, 2006)
for Seasonal Variations in the Carnegie Curve

13. African Lightning Exceeds
South American Lightning
Williams and
Sátori (2004)

14. Carnegie Curve on Individual Days ?
Ralph Markson:We should get the get the
same result every day.
Bob Holzworth:We can have factor-of-two
fluctuations from one
day to the next.

15. Diurnal Variations of Ionospheric
Potential
Note similarity with behavior of ‘carnegie curve’
(Markson et al, 1999)

16. Simultaneously Recorded Electric Field at Two
Widely Separated Locations
Holzworth et al (1984)

17. Electric Field at South Pole
Observatory
(Reddell et al, 2004)

18. Schumann Resonance Diurnal Variations HEW

19. Schumann Resonance Diurnal Variations HNS

20. Impact of nuclear weapons
testing on Atmospheric
Electicity

21. Long-Term Variations in Electric Field
at Two Sites in England
1955 1966
1955 1966

22. Global Impact of Radioactive Fallout

23. Ionospheric Potential and
Stratospheric Burden of Radioactive Strontium

24. Long-Term Variations of
Global Current

25. Downward Trends at Nagycenk
(Hungary) and Eskdalemuir (UK)
Harrison (2003)
Märcz and Harrison (2003)

26. Evidence for Reduced Pollution in the UK
in the 20
th
Century
McIntosh (1957) Decline in smoke concentration
at
Eskdalemuir
Novakov et al (2003)Decline in black soot production
from 1920 onward
Reduced Pollution Enhanced Conductivity
Reduced Electric Field

27. 14 Years of Schumann Resonance Intensity

28. Stability of Electric Field
at Kennedy Space Center
(Halstead Harrison, GRL 2006)

29. Air Earth current record at Kew
Air–earth current measurements at Kew, London, 1909–1979
R.G. Harrison,T, W.J. Ingramb.
  Atmospheric Research 76 (2005) 49–64
From Harrison and Ingram, 2005

30. Long-Term Variation of Ionospheric Potential

31. Global circuit response
to Global warming?

32. Global Warming is Sensitive to Latitude

33. Anticipated Response of Global
Circuit to Global Warming
Anticipated sensitivity 10% per 1°C
Measured global warming (tropics) 0.1°c per decade
Anticipated rate of increase 1% per decade
This may go undetected in a short record

34. Temperature and Thunder Days,
Fairbanks, AK
1950 1960 1970 1980 1990 2000 2010
0
5
10
15
20
N
u
m
b
e
r

o
f
T
h
u
n
d
e
r

D
a
y
s
T
e
m
p
e
r
a
t
u
r
e

(
°
F
)
52
54
56
58
60
62
Summer Average Temperatures,
Fairbanks, AK 1950 - 2005
Summer Thunder Days,
Fairbanks, AK

35. CONCLUSIONS
 The ‘DC’ and ‘AC’ Global Circuits are correlated, but do not track
each other identically, for well established reasons.
 Electrified shower clouds (Wilson, 1920) are fundamental in
understanding differences between the ‘DC’ and ‘AC’ Global
Circuits.
 Nuclear weapons tests in the 1950-60’s appear to have had both
local and global effects on the Global Circuit.
 No substantive evidence exists for a long-term decline in the
Global Circuit.
 The absence of a clear upward trend in the Global Circuit is not
inconsistent with the documented upward trend in temperature.

36. Schumann Resonance Diurnal Variations HEW

37. Schumann Resonance Diurnal Variations HNS

43. Ionospheric Potential

49. Simpson’s (1905) Diurnal Variations
in Lapland
0 2 4 6 8 10 12 14 16 18 20 22 UT

50. 14 Years of Schumann Resonance Intensity

51. Simpson in Lapland 1904