Abstract
The study of the global atmospheric electric circuit has advanced dramatically in the past 50 years. Large advances have been made in the areas of lightning and thunderstorm research, as related to the global circuit. We now have satellites looking down on the Earth continuously, supplying information on the temporal and spatial variability of lightning and thunderstorms. Thunderstorms are electric current generators, which drive electric currents up through the conducting atmosphere. They maintain the ionosphere at a potential of ∼+250 kV with respect to the Earth's surface. The global electric circuit is completed by currents ∼2 pA/ m 2 flowing through the fair weather atmosphere, remote from thunderstorms, and by transient currents due to negative cloud-to-ground lightning discharges. The time constant of the circuit, ∼>2 min , demonstrates that thunderstorms must occur continually to maintain the fair weather electric field. New discoveries have been made in the field of sprites, elves and blue jets, which may have a direct impact on the global circuit. Our knowledge of the global electric circuit modulated by solar effects has improved. Changes to the global circuit are associated with changes of conductivity linked with the time-varying presence of energetic charged particles, and the solar wind may influence the global electric circuit by inferred effects on cloud microphysics, temperature, and dynamics in the troposphere. We now have a better understanding of how the conductivity of the atmosphere is influenced by aerosols, and how this impacts our measurements of the fair-weather global circuit. The global atmospheric electric circuit is also beginning to be recognised by some climate researchers as a useful tool with which to study and monitor the Earth's changing climate.
Highlights
An earthquake is an element of the global electric circuit (GEC) – this new idea suggested in the space age is tested in our study
In the frame of the GEC concept, one may expect that tectonic structures of the northern and southern hemi spheres may be magnetically conjugated
It is found that the midocean ridges of the southern hemisphere, located along the boundary of the Antarctic lithosphere plate, are magnetically conjugated with the areas of the junction of continental orogens and platforms in the northern hemisphere
Summary
Эрой космических исследований внесен сущест венный вклад в развитие наук о Земле и, в частности, задокументированы факты появления электромагнит ных и плазменных возмущений в характеристиках околоземного космического пространства (ОКП) нака нуне ощутимых землетрясений [Afonin et al, 1999; Pulinets, Boyarchuk, 2004]. Что электромагнитные и плазменные эффекты, сопутству ющие процессу подготовки землетрясения, появляют ся не только над районом будущего эпицентра, но и в магнитосопряженном районе в противоположном по лушарии Земли [Pulinets et al, 2007; Ruzhin et al, 1998]. В про цессе объяснения этих экспериментальных фактов бы ла выдвинута идея [Pulinets, 2009], что возмущение характеристик ОКП накануне сейсмических событий обусловлено модификацией электрического поля в глобальной электрической цепи (ГЭЦ) электромагнит ными возмущениями в литосфере, сопутствующими процессу подготовки землетрясения. Идея электриче ской связи между ионосферой и районом подготовки очага землетрясения была недавно успешно использо вана в работе [Harrison et al, 2010] для объяснения понижения интенсивности естественного ультраниз кочастотного радиоизлучения, зарегистрированного спутником DEMETER в ночные часы в верхней ионо сфере накануне коровых землетрясений с магнитудой 5.0 и выше [Němec et al, 2009]. Результаты показали, что между некоторыми совре менными геологотектоническими структурами дейст вительно наблюдается геомагнитная сопряженность
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