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The effects of air pressure and water vapour content on the propagation of positive corona streamers, and their implications to lightning initiation
Author(s) -
Griffiths R. F.,
Phelps C. T.
Publication year - 1976
Publication title -
quarterly journal of the royal meteorological society
Language(s) - English
Resource type - Journals
SCImago Journal Rank - 1.744
H-Index - 143
eISSN - 1477-870X
pISSN - 0035-9009
DOI - 10.1002/qj.49710243211
Subject(s) - lightning (connector) , corona (planetary geology) , electric field , meteorology , atmospheric pressure , mechanics , corona discharge , physics , water vapor , drop (telecommunication) , range (aeronautics) , environmental science , atmospheric sciences , computational physics , materials science , thermodynamics , voltage , electrical engineering , power (physics) , quantum mechanics , astrobiology , venus , composite material , engineering
As a first step in the construction and testing of a theoretical model of lightning initiation, measurements have been made of the ambient electric field E o required to support the long‐range propagation of corona streamers as a function of dry air pressure pα and the partial pressure of water vapour pw. The experiments reveal that E o falls more rapidly with pα than would be expected on the assumption that E ä/pα = const., which has been used in previous discussions of the problem of lightning initiation. E o was found to increase linearly with pw. It appears that Eo is considerably less than the field required to initiate corona from any type of hydrometeor excepting colliding drop pairs. Arguments based on these results are presented to show that the high fields in thunderclouds are probably restricted to regions that are small in extent compared with the dimensions of the thundercloud.