That same person who watches the evening t.v. We know the current beliefs. Most of us have seen pictures of the beautiful Aurora Borealis. Their wonderful flashing, dancing lights incredibly lighting the northern skies. It is interesting to note, as an introduction to this abstract, that this phenomenon usually follows the coast line.
Sea water is less conductive than land.
Great charges of plasma are introduced into the upper atmosphere of the earth where they must be dissipated. Some of these charges are dissipated through the common storm systems that we see circling the earth. The fact that land mass attracts the charge greater than the seas is readily seen in a recent study where lightening strikes were counted over land and compared to strikes over the water. It's not just that most lightning occurs over land. From December 1997 through January 1998, LIS saw that 90 percent of lightning was over land, a significant finding.