FECYT – Spanish Foundation for Science and Technology
A team of Spanish researchers has made a high-speed recording of elves and sprites in storms, fleeting and luminous electric phenomena produced in the upper layers of the atmosphere. Their analysis of these observations has been published in the Journal of Geophysical Research.
“This is the first time in Europe that we have been able to use high-speed video to detect transitory luminous phenomena taking place in the upper atmosphere – so-called sprites (in the form of a carrot or column) and elves (which are ring shaped)”, Joan Montanyà, co-author of the study and a researcher at the Department of Electric Energy at the Polytechnic University of Catalonia (UPC), tells SINC.
The results have been published in the Journal of Geophysical Research and show there are many fewer elves in storms that form over land than those at sea, where electric currents apparently have greater energy, especially in winter. Some of the recordings show elves and sprites at the same time, evidence of the strength of lightning over the sea during winter storms.
The scientists also observed the interaction between two sprites. A branch of one of them hit and bounced off the second, giving clues about their dynamics and electric structure. Sprites normally appear for around 40 milliseconds and 20 or 30 kilometres away from the site of the lightning.
“All these phenomena are related with storms, particularly winter storms, but they only appear in mesoscale convective systems (usually in large fronts), which produce lightning with high levels of energy or extreme electric currents”, explains Montanyà.
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Sorry, wrong thread 😉 i’ll hurry over to the wind thread…
“Maybe some day we can tap into that energy, and use the power as Tesla had envisioned. Wouldn’t that be something? ”
I’ll just leave this here:
http://www.rexresearch.com/plauson/scinv.jpg
http://www.rexresearch.com/plauson/plauson.htm#patentlist
First of all high altitude lightning happens with or without thunderstorms – they have been witnessed and recorded by shuttle astronauts and other independent observers for years.
Second NASA wouldn’t lie or cover up evidence would they? Just ask James Hanson.
As for Occam – what’s more plausible a lightning stroke that can generate enough heat to melt ceramics let alone aluminum – that was also witnessed of a convoluted story about frozen foam damaging the wing.
Is it just coincidence that the photo of the lightning impact strike occurred at 5:53am and that NASA reported the wheel well sensor blinked out at the same time. If it’s all so cut and dried why have the high res images never been released for other experts to analyze? Perhaps for the same reason climate data codes are kept secret.
Our lack of knowledge about fundamental processes on a dynamic Earth underscores the folly of trying to fine-tune a trace gas in its atmosphere.
They are the disincarnated spirits of former post normal scientists.☺