This review is an overview of progress in understanding the theory and observation of the global atmospheric electric circuit, with the focus on its dc aspects, and its short and long term variability. The effects of the downward ionosphere-earth current density, J z , on cloud microphysics, with its variability as an explanation for small observed changes in weather and climate, will also be reviewed. The global circuit shows responses to external as well as internal forcing. External forcing arises from changes in the distribution of conductivity due to changes in the cosmic ray flux and other energetic space particle fluxes, and at high magnetic latitudes from solar wind electric fields. Internal forcing arises from changes in the generators and changes in volcanic and anthropogenic aerosols in the troposphere and stratosphere. All these result in spatial and temporal variation in J z .Variations in J z affect the production of space charge in layer clouds, with the charges being transferred to droplets and aerosol particles. New observations and new analyses are consistent with non-negligible effects of the charges on the microphysics of such clouds. Observed effects are small, but of high statistical significance for cloud cover and precipitation changes, with resulting atmospheric temperature, pressure and dynamics changes. These effects are detectable on the day-to-day timescale for repeated J z changes of order 10%, and are thus second order electrical effects. The implicit first order effects have not, as yet, been incorporated into basic cloud and aerosol physics. Long term (multidecadal through millennial) global circuit changes, due to solar activity modulating the galactic cosmic ray flux, are an order of magnitude greater at high latitudes and in the stratosphere, as can be inferred from geological cosmogenic isotope records. Proxies for climate change in the same stratified depositories show strong correlations of climate with the inferred global circuit variations.The theory for electrical effects on scavenging of aerosols in clouds is reviewed, with several microphysical processes having consequences for contact ice nucleation; effects on droplet size distributions; precipitation and cloud lifetimes. There are several pathways for resulting macroscopic cloud changes that affect atmospheric circulation; including enhanced ice production and precipitation from clouds in cyclonic storms, with latent heat release affecting cyclone vorticity; and cloud cover changes in layer clouds that affect the atmospheric radiation balance. These macroscopic consequences of global circuit variability affecting aerosols-cloud interactions provide explanations for the many observations of short term and long term changes in clouds and climate that correlate with measured or inferred J z and cosmic ray flux changes due to external or internal forcing, and lead to predictions of additional effects.

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Previous calculations of the rate at which falling droplets in clouds collide with aerosols have led to the conclusion that except in thunderclouds any electrical charges on the aerosols or droplets have little effect on the collision rate. However, it had been assumed that the aerosols would have only a few elementary charges on them, whereas it is now known that at the tops of nonthunderstorm clouds the evaporating droplets may have several hundred elementary charges on them and that much of this charge remains on the residual aerosol for 5 min or so after the evaporation. Also, most previous calculations neglected image charge forces that provide strong attraction at close range even when droplet and aerosol have charges of the same sign and of comparable magnitude.The authors present numerical calculations showing that electrical effects dominate collision rates for charged evaporation aerosols. The calculations are for the size range of 0.1-to 1.0-m radius with the collision efficiency compared to that for phoretic and Brownian effects being greater by up to a factor of 30 greater for droplets from 18.6-to 106-m radius with relative humidity in the range 95%-100% and only 50 elementary charges on the aerosol. The results imply that electrical effects can be important for the scavenging of evaporation aerosol particles in the size range of the Greenfield gap.The authors call this process ''electroscavenging.'' Electroscavenging of charged particles, when the particles are mostly of the same sign, is a previously unrecognized droplet charging process. Electroscavenging also provides a pathway for contact ice nucleation when charged aerosol particles from evaporated charged droplets collide with supercooled droplets. Ice nucleation can occur because aerosol particles from the evaporation of cloud droplets have been found to be more effective as ice forming nuclei than other aerosol particles that have not been processed through droplets.

The ionization production by MeV-GeV particles (mostly galactic cosmic rays) in the lower atmosphere has-well defined variations on a day-to-day time scale related to solar activity, and on the decadal time scale related to the sunspot cycle. New results based on an analysis of 33 years of northern hemisphere meteorological data show clear correlations of winter cyclone intensity (measured as the changes in the area in which vorticity is above a certain threshold) with day-to-day changes in the cosmic ray flux. Similar correlations are also present between winter cyclone intensity, the related storm track latitude shifts, and cosmic ray flux changes on the decadal time scale. These point to a mechanism in which atmospheric electrical processes affect tropospheric thermodynamics, with a requirement for energy amplification by a factor of about 107 and a time scale of hours. A process is hypothesized in which ionization affects the nucleation and/or growth rate of ice crystals in high-level clouds by enhancing the rate of freezing of thermodynamically unstable supercooled water droplets which are known to be present at the tops of high clouds. The electrofreezing increases the flux of ice crystals that can glaciate midlevel clouds. In warm core winter cyclones the consequent release of latent heat intensifies convection and extracts energy from the baroclinic instability to further intensify the cyclone. As a result, the general circulation in winter is affected in a way consistent with observed variations on the interannual/decadal time scale. The effects on particle concentration and size distributions in high-level clouds may also influence circulation via radiative forcing. [1988] show that the statistical significance of apparent responses of stratospheric and tropospheric temperature and dynamics to the 11-year solar cycle is greatly increased when the data are stratified by the direction (quasibiennial oscillation phase, or QBO phase) of equatorial stratospheric winds. Similar variations with solar cycle and QBO phase have been found for atmospheric electric potential gradient by Marcz [1990] and for total ozone by Varotsos [19891. There are three agents that have been considered for forcing of solar variability effects on the atmosphere. The first is changes in total solar irradiance, providing a variable heat input to the surface, as originally suggested by Herschel [1801]. The decadal and short-term variations have recently been measured to be about 0.1% [Schatten, 1988], and their effects have been modeled and have been shown to be insignificant (less than 0.1 øC) on this time scale [Wigley and Raper, 1990]. However, larger variations in total irradiance may exist on the centennial time scale that could force longerterm climate variations [Eddy, 1977; Reid, 1990]. The second suggested forcing agent is variations in solar ultraviolet flux, with the hypothesis that changes in tropospheric dynamics are produced through the intermediate process of changes in the dynamics of the upper stratosphere, where...

[1] A new model of the global circuit has been constructed that treats more realistically than previous models the external influences due to varying charged particle fluxes from space, the internal variability due to the transport of radon by atmospheric dynamics, and the varying aerosol populations. An approximate treatment of the effects of explosive volcanic eruptions, that introduce SO 2 and H 2 O into the stratosphere, involves the creation of ultrafine aerosol particles in the downward branch of the Brewer-Dobson circulation from sulfuric acid aerosol particles vaporized in the upward branch. A large increase in stratospheric column resistance occurs at high latitudes, but for much of the time this column resistance is reduced by stratospheric ionizing radiation due to relativistic electron precipitation. Here we present results for the variability of the global circuit due to the variations of the aerosol populations in the stratosphere and troposphere, the variability of the cosmic ray flux, and the geographical and seasonal variability of the near-surface radioactivity. We discuss inferred changes in the circuit parameters associated with climate change, on interannual to Milankovich timescales.