Energy
See also: Sprite (lightning), Upper-atmospheric lightning, and St. Elmo's fireIf the quantity of water that is condensed in and subsequently precipitated from a cloud is known, then the total energy of a thunderstorm can be calculated. In a typical thunderstorm, approximately 5×108 kg of water vapor are lifted, and the amount of energy released when this condenses is 1015 joules. This is on the same order of magnitude of energy released within a tropical cyclone, and more energy than that released during the atomic bomb blast at Hiroshima, Japan in 1945.
The Fermi Gamma-ray Burst Monitor results show that gamma rays and antimatter particles (positrons) can be generated in powerful thunderstorms. It is suggested that the antimatter positrons are formed in terrestrial gamma-ray flashes (TGF). TGFs are brief bursts occurring inside thunderstorms and associated with lightning. The streams of positrons and electrons collide higher in the atmosphere to generate more gamma rays. About 500 TGFs may occur every day worldwide, but mostly go undetected.
Read more about this topic: Thunderstorm
Famous quotes containing the word energy:
“Three elements go to make up an idea. The first is its intrinsic quality as a feeling. The second is the energy with which it affects other ideas, an energy which is infinite in the here-and-nowness of immediate sensation, finite and relative in the recency of the past. The third element is the tendency of an idea to bring along other ideas with it.”
—Charles Sanders Peirce (1839–1914)
“But often the presence of mind and energy of a person remote from the spotlight decide the course of history for centuries to come.”
—Stefan Zweig (18811942)
“I rather think the cinema will die. Look at the energy being exerted to revive it—yesterday it was color, today three dimensions. I don’t give it forty years more. Witness the decline of conversation. Only the Irish have remained incomparable conversationalists, maybe because technical progress has passed them by.”
—Orson Welles (1915–1984)