The Press Stories
Of Thunderstorms With inverted poles. This is the result of a study conducted by a team of researchers from the Astronomical Laboratory of the University of Toulouse. This finding is the result of an analysis of approximately 500 days of thunderstorms that occurred since 2014. Corsica Sylvain Coquilat, editor-in-chief of the study, explains Atmospheric research In early June.
For this research, the authors of the publication contained data from twelve stations spread across Corsica that make it possible to observe lightning in 3D. “When you look at lightning, its impact is visible on the ground. But 80% of electrical activity actually occurs in the cloud, and to observe that, we need research through the electromagnetism that these stations allow,” the educator continued.
“Unprecedented Events”
The electrical structure of a thunderstorm is usually made up of three poles – a positive current at the top, a negative current in the middle and a new positive current at the bottom, which researchers were able to observe as “strange storm events” occur. An electro-bipolar system has its polarization (i.e., negative charge at the upper level, positive charge at the lower level). Indicate.
If such hurricane events with opposite poles had already been observed in the “Greater American Plains,” Sylvain Coquilad notes, Corsica’s structure would be completely different. “American inverted polar thunderstorms are so powerful that they are called” supercells. In contrast, the studied clouds have weak vertical growth, “the scientist notes. Furthermore, they refer to the authors as “almost straight, long distances (up to 230 km) and high speeds, 80 to 90 km / h”.
“We are at the beginning of our search”
“This is a very recent discovery, a phenomenon we have only observed in Corsica. How are we still? Why? However, it brings new uncertainty about the behavior of clouds, but we are at the beginning of our research,” explains the researcher. Corsica is not the only place in the North Mediterranean where chapters can be enjoyed, for example and recently, one of which occurred in the Pyrenees chain, giving Spectacular pictures.
“We do not have the tools to make observations,” Sylvain Coquilat commented, for whom, “Climate change must be identified very soon. We need to increase the time scale of observations.”
