Walsh Medical Media

Heading : Introduction

Benjamin Franklin would be understandably disappointed. Here we are, more than 260 years after first demonstration in Marly-la-Ville, France, of sparks drawn from a vertical iron rod in a thunderstorm [<a href="#1" title="1">1</a>], to establish the presence of lightning electrification and yet not having unraveled among the many complexities of variables involved in such severe weather condition a specific role, or not, for electrical aspects of the process of tornadogenesis. Bernard Vonnegut and colleagues performed pioneering researches to establish such connection during the period from the 1960s through the 1970s; see for example references [<a href="#2" title="2">2</a>-<a href="#4" title="4">4</a>]. It seems fair to say that a storm of investigations was spawned with results in opposition [<a href="#5" title="5">5</a>-<a href="#7" title="7">7</a>]. Davies-Jones RP [<a href="#7" title="7">7</a>] in particular led a valuable discussion [<a href="#8" title="8">8</a>,<a href="#9" title="9">9</a>] ending with a concluding statement that “there [was] little observational evidence to support [the theory of a main role for thunderstorm electricity in tornadogenesis]”. One purpose of the present report these many years afterward is to provide an update of experimental observations and analysis relating to the issue.

A second purpose of the present report is to carry on from an initiative begun with internal research funding at Eglin Air Force Base (AFB), FL, for the purpose of investigating the means by which a tornado could possibly be disrupted [<a href="#10" title="10">10</a>]. The reason for such funding, as will be demonstrated, was that a significant number of Air Force and other military bases were in the path of ‘tornado alley’, cutting a severe-storm-centered swath from the lower western portion of the US mid-west and tracking north by north-east to the Canadian border. Significant damage was shown to have occurred to military facilities located in the region, with accompanying loss of personnel, including within the civilian sector. Currently, the susceptible region has increased in size; and tornadic activity has also increased worldwide, as will be demonstrated in the following description. One outcome of the Eglin-funded research activity was a proposed focus on a role for intra-cloud (IC) lightning in tornadogenesis [<a href="#11" title="11">11</a>,<a href="#12" title="12">12</a>]. During the same period, the US National Academies had published a report in which attention was directed to a list of critical concerns in weather modification research among which items were ‘cloud modeling issues’ such as ‘predictive models for severe weather events’ and cloud model capability to track dispersion of seeding material both within and outside of seeded areas [<a href="#13" title="13">13</a>]. A later USNA outcome was the current federally-funded 2009-2017 VORTEX2 program ‘to find previously unknown indications that a tornado will soon form’ with report that the ‘results could go beyond tornado forecasting’ [<a href="#14" title="14">14</a>]. Also, a research session had been organized at the 2006 Annual Meeting of the American Association for the Advancement of Science (AAAS) [<a href="#15" title="15">15</a>]. In follow-up activity, a letter of support for needed research activity in weather science was submitted in response to solicitation from the National Science Board [<a href="#16" title="16">16</a>], and a note was published on the need for cooperation between weather modification practitioners and academic researchers dedicated to ameliorating the consequences of severe weather storms [<a href="#17" title="17">17</a>]. Need was expressed for interdisciplinary research on the topic relating to that recently touted for research in the broader field of meteorological sciences [<a href="#18" title="18">18</a>]. The present report continues in the same spirit of bringing in otherwise disparate subjects of electrical field equations, atomic-scale electron collisions, and cloud ionization/ice nucleation chemistry aspects of cloud electrifications, all proposed to connect with important additional observations made in recent reports of tornadic activity within severe storm behaviors.

Electrical Role for Severe Storm Tornadogenesis (and Modification)

Heading : Introduction