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Gamma radiation is produced in large tropical thunderstorms

phys.org

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Re: Gamma radiation is produced in large tropical thunderstorms

#21

Post by garrettgarcia »

Andrew Hall has hypothesized that plasma flow has a large part to play in thunderstorm formation and tornados. These surprising gamma rays mentioned in the article would seem to support Hall's hypothesis.

Hall's theories are well outside of the mainstream and I don't know his credentials, if any, and cannot speak to his hypothesis's veracity. I'm not a scientist. Would any actual scientists care to comment?

Here is a video where he explains his theory: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DU706V0bltc

Re: Gamma radiation is produced in large tropical thunderstorms

#23

Post by lazide »

madars wrote: post #5
throwaway314155 wrote: post #4

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Familiarity with the unit is important to gauge scale.

But familiarity gets more remote as you need larger and larger (or, smaller and smaller) multipliers. It's far more illustrative to say "the volume of a typical gas tank" than "the internal volume of hundred million poppy seeds", even though the volumes are in the same ballpark. For example, https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Orders_of_magnitude_(voltage) says that high voltage substations are in 100 kV range and 25.5MV i…

They need to write for an (average) 6th grade reading level - maximum. So think 4th grade most of the time.

How many 4th graders have any clue what a mega volt is? How many do you think have personal experience with 150 mega volts?

Re: Gamma radiation is produced in large tropical thunderstorms

#24

Post by trhway »

cperciva wrote: post #2

Positively charged particles end up at the top of the storm while negatively charged particles drop to the bottom, creating an enormous electric field that can be as strong as 100 million AA batteries stacked end-to-end. Or put another way, 150 MV. What's with this media obsession with using obscure non-SI units?

while the field is strong, the actual energy seems to be not much - a lightning bolt is few billions of Joules, i.e. about 1000 KW/h (100kg gasoline).

Re: Gamma radiation is produced in large tropical thunderstorms

#25

Post by lazide »

samplatt wrote: post #19
BobaFloutist wrote: post #8

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That's fair but the average person kinda knows how much (work/light/heat) a single AA battery can do/produce, but not what a substation can do.

I would posit that no person on earth has personal experience of 100 million AA batteries in a single circuit.

How many have personal experience with 150 MV?

Re: Gamma radiation is produced in large tropical thunderstorms

#26

Post by lazide »

labster wrote: post #18
cperciva wrote: post #2

Positively charged particles end up at the top of the storm while negatively charged particles drop to the bottom, creating an enormous electric field that can be as strong as 100 million AA batteries stacked end-to-end. Or put another way, 150 MV. What's with this media obsession with using obscure non-SI units?

If all of those 100M AA batteries were laid out flat, they would cover over 13 football fields (70000 sq m), including the Chargers home stadium.

How heavy do you think they’d be in elephants and/or Volkswagen beetles (up to you to pick 70’s era or newer).

Re: Gamma radiation is produced in large tropical thunderstorms

#27

Post by fecal_henge »

analog31 wrote: post #10
amateurCoder5 wrote: post #6

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That's as strong as 175,000 electric eels!

The proper units for electric field would be voltage per unit length. Fortunately an electric eel has both a voltage and a length, so it could be eels per eel.

Thus we have proved that the electric field is dimensionless

Re: Gamma radiation is produced in large tropical thunderstorms

#28

Post by slow_typist »

trhway wrote: post #24
cperciva wrote: post #2

Positively charged particles end up at the top of the storm while negatively charged particles drop to the bottom, creating an enormous electric field that can be as strong as 100 million AA batteries stacked end-to-end. Or put another way, 150 MV. What's with this media obsession with using obscure non-SI units?

while the field is strong, the actual energy seems to be not much - a lightning bolt is few billions of Joules, i.e. about 1000 KW/h (100kg gasoline).

kWh

Re: Gamma radiation is produced in large tropical thunderstorms

#29

Post by shrubble »

amateurCoder5 wrote: post #7
amateurCoder5 wrote: post #6

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That's as strong as 175,000 electric eels!

Connected in series, obviously.

There might be quite a difference depending on whether connected in serieel or paralleel I suppose.

Re: Gamma radiation is produced in large tropical thunderstorms

#30

Post by shrubble »

mhog_hn wrote: post #3
cperciva wrote: post #2

Positively charged particles end up at the top of the storm while negatively charged particles drop to the bottom, creating an enormous electric field that can be as strong as 100 million AA batteries stacked end-to-end. Or put another way, 150 MV. What's with this media obsession with using obscure non-SI units?

I agree in giving flak for using the term AA batteries in this context.

Subtly played!
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