CU-Boulder researchers use climate model to better understand electricity in the air

Electrical currents born from thunderstorms are able to flow through the atmosphere and around the globe, causing a detectable electrification of the air even in places with no thunderstorm activity.

But until recently, scientists have not had a good understanding of how conductivity varies throughout the atmosphere and how that may affect the path of the electrical currents.

Now, a research team led by the University of Colorado-Boulder has developed a global electric circuit model by adding an additional layer to a climate model created by colleagues at the National Center for Atmospheric Research, or NCAR, in Boulder.

The results, published in…