3. A Simplified Tropospheric Mesospheric
Local Electric Circuit
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Figure 4
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[8] The proposed simplified circuit for tropospheric
mesospheric electrical coupling, which includes the electric
current generator source inherent to the mesosphere, is presented
in Figure 4. The localized or large-scale mesospheric local emf
source delivers an electric current density of
jm = 10-9-10-8 A m-2 that perturbs
Te and
ne [Martynenko et al., 2001].
The resistor
Rt represents the localized troposphere and the stratosphere, and
Rm designates the localized mesospheric electric current load resistor.
The global fair weather load resistor
Ra, external to the circuit, has
resistance of approximately 200
W [e.g., Bering et al., 1998].
Under undisturbed atmospheric conditions in the absence of local
thunderstorm activity, the density of the return electric current
through the fair weather atmosphere,
ja, has the value
ja 
10-12 A m
-2 [e.g., Bering et al., 1998;
Rycroft et al., 2000],
and therefore
the
ja may be neglected compared to
jm. Also, for an undisturbed
troposphere,
Rt 
Rm Ra and the total mesospheric source
load resistance
Ri = Rm Rt / (Rm + Rt) Rm, i.e., the electrical
troposphere-mesosphere coupling does not occur, and the
jm violates local thermodynamic equilibrium in the lower part of the
ionospheric
D region with enhanced electron temperatures.
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