page_title: Atmospheric physics
section_title: Atmospheric electricity
hierarchical_section_title: Atmospheric physics / Atmospheric electricity
caption_attribution_description: English: Lightning over the outskirts of Oradea, Romania, during the August 17, 2005 thunderstorm which went on to cause major flash floods over southern Romania. Română: Descărcări elctrice la marginea oraşului Oradea, în timpul furtunilor din 17 august 2005, ce au cauzat de asemenea şi viiturile din sudul României. Technical details: Canon EOS 300D, EF-S 18-55 lens; Exp: 30s; F/13; ISO400
context_page_description: Atmospheric physics is the application of physics to the study of the atmosphere. Atmospheric physicists attempt to model Earth's atmosphere and the atmospheres of the other planets using fluid flow equations, chemical models, radiation budget, and energy transfer processes in the atmosphere. In order to model weather systems, atmospheric physicists employ elements of scattering theory, wave propagation models, cloud physics, statistical mechanics and spatial statistics which are highly mathematical and related to physics. It has close links to meteorology and climatology and also covers the design and construction of instruments for studying the atmosphere and the interpretation of the data they provide, including remote sensing instruments. At the dawn of the space age and the introduction of sounding rockets, aeronomy became a subdiscipline concerning the upper layers of the atmosphere, where dissociation and ionization are important.
context_section_description: Atmospheric electricity is the term given to the electrostatics and electrodynamics of the atmosphere (or, more broadly, the atmosphere of any planet). The Earth's surface, the ionosphere, and the atmosphere is known as the global atmospheric electrical circuit. Lightning discharges 30,000 amperes, at up to 100 million volts, and emits light, radio waves, X-rays and even gamma rays. Plasma temperatures in lightning can approach 28,000 kelvins and electron densities may exceed 10²⁴/m³.
caption: Cloud-to-ground lightning in the global atmospheric electrical circuit
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