Geoelectricity: atmospheric charging and thunderstorms

The "classical picture of the global circuit" - i.e. of atmospheric charging by thunderstorm clouds - is shown to be inconsistent. Thunderstorm overall voltages integral Edz are (only) of order MV, slightly above fairweather voltages, insufficient to charge the 'geocapacitor'. Instead of charging the ionosphere (via Wilson currents), thunderstorms occasionally discharge towards it, with emitted spectra ranging from the visible up to gamma-ray energies. Fairweather charging takes place, so we claim, via the negative drizzle of the 'heavy' aerosols, of radii between 0.1 mu m and 0.1 mm in the troposphere. (C) 1999 Elsevier Science Ltd. All rights reserved.