Atmospheric “Thermals”–Triggered by Electric Forces?
A debate is a raging in the community of foot-launched-aircraft–paragliders and hangliders–to better explain and understand formation of “thermals.” Those are the rising air currents that hawks circle in, and that allow human pilots to soar high above the earth, using wings & harness weighing only 10kG with an area of about 25m^2. I enjoyed this sport myself just yesterday, as I have many hundreds of hours before, spending more than two hours in the air 1300 meters above where I launched. One view in the debate goes roughly like this: 1. Thermals have no cohesive quality or adhesive quality like an air bubble in water, because the surface tension or cohesive quality attributable to water molecule do not apply to the buoyant forces causing warmer less dense air to rise. These act continuously, are stronger than any other forces that might cause this warm air to linger near the ground. Less dense warmer air is ALWAYS rising relative to denser air. The other view: 2. Thermals are made o
