Re: Does electrostatic charge keep a cloud up?


"Yokel" <yokel@xxxxxxxxxxxxxx> wrote
news:5hpjolF3l1m2uU1@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx
"dave" <nospam> wrote in message
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| Sorry if I sound like a buffoon to you meteorologists. I'm simply a
layman
| that knows nothing about this but wants to learn. I did some searching
and
| it is said that warm rising air keeps clouds up. Is it possible the
static
| charge in the clouds could also have an effect? Something like
anti-gravity
| on a small scale? Thanks.
|

You seem to have drawn some interesting replies to your question,
including
a number who seem to be doing it the hard way.

Anti-gravity or electrostatic effects are not necessary.

But I see small problem. The hot smoke. In the sunny days it goes straight
up but under clouds do not..

Cloud droplets when
first formed are very small and therefore fall very slowly. Clouds also
evolve with time - either they dissipate by evaporation into the air
around
or continuing uplift causes more condensation and more cloud droplets to
form. The time it would take for the small droplets to fall out of the
cloud is similar to or greater than the time scales on which these
processes
operate, so you would either see the cloud evaporate or continue to grow,
rather than see the cloud droplets fall out.

If the cloud continues to grow, other processes take over. The cloud
droplets will eventually grow by collision with each other, but surface
tension

Here also could have an effect the voltage which is raising when droplets
grow.

forces and the tendency of the layer of air around each drop to
deflect other approaching drops makes this a slow and inefficient process.
Prolonged uplift or condensation will eventually result in cloud droplets
growing large enough to fall out and typically this produces the fine
drizzle you get on windward coasts and hills during cloudy, humid weather
with no heavy rain about.

Under favourable circumstances it is possible to get heavier rain

After lightning rain is heavier.

this way,
and this can happen in shallow shower clouds in the tropics. Most of our
rain, however, is formed in clouds which extend above the freezing level.
Once ice crystals have formed (which is actually hard to do because small
water drops can remain liquid down to -40F unless special freezing nuclei
are present to help the ice structure to form), then the ice crystals will
grow rapidly at the expense of the water drops (by evaporation of the
water
drops and condensation onto the ice crystals), producing snow crystals
which
fall out, melting to rain on the way down if they encounter air above
freezing. This is the main fall-out mechanism.

Vigorous convective clouds with strong up and down currents in them can
produce other exciting things such as hail and torrential downpours, but
that is another story...

Here also the charge in the clouds could have an effect. Air currents and
electric currents work together.
S*


.

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