Describe one promising explanation for how thunderclouds become electrified, that is, acquire a charge separation that often leads to cloud-to-ground lightning strikes.
The process of thunderstorm electrification.
Explanation of Solution
Introduction:
In a thunderstorm, the charging area is the central part where air moves upwards and the temperature is about -15°C to -25°C. This upward air and temperature produce a mixture of small water droplets which are super cooled, small ice crystals, and hail.
The water droplets and the ice crystals move upwards, whereas the hail tends to fall or suspend in the air. During this movement within the storm, the ice crystals and the hail collide with each other. This collision enables the ice crystals to be positively charged and the hail to be negatively charged. This clearly states that the upper of the cloud has positive charges and the middle to lower part has negative charges. The ice crystals which have positive charges move horizontally to some distance at the upper part which is termed as anvil. This anvil is main charging process of the thunderstorm cloud. Normally, ground has negative charge. When thunderstorm cloud approaches the ground, the negative charges in the lower part will get repel with the ground. So, this, in turn, causes the ground to have positive charge, while the anvil, having positive charge cause the ground to have negative charge.
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