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Re: Charge on the Earth



At 09:23 AM 4/8/97, Mark Shapiro wrote:

... the fair weather
electric field near the surface of the earth is of the order of 100 V/m.
However, a charge density of slightly less than 1 nC/m^2 on the surface of
the earth is all that is needed to support a field of this magnitude. In
comparison a small parallel plate capacitor (plate area 1 cm^2 and plate
separation of 0.1 cm) charged to 12 V will store a charge of about 120 nC,
which corresponds to a charge density of 1,200,000 nC/m^2. Thus, any
slight charging of the battery-capacitor system by atmospheric effects
would be negligible in comparison to the amount of charge being separated
by the action of the battery.

Dr. Mark H. Shapiro

I seem to recall a figure of one ampere as the integrated charging current
for the
Earth - Atmospheric capacitance.
At any rate, a classic two volume monograph translated from the German is
Atmospheric Electricity, H Israel and H Dolezalek, Keter Press.

Regards
brian whatcott <inet@intellisys.net>
Altus OK