That makes sense. Because the broadside shove impacts the atmosphere with a relatively smooth voltage gradient if the solar wind is fairly even, then the atmosp

That makes sense. Because the broadside shove impacts the atmosphere with a relatively smooth voltage gradient if the solar wind is fairly even, then the atmosphere may not break down and conduct, and the resulting e field differential will impart kinetic energy into the molecules of the upper atmosphere. This energy has to go somewhere, so it just turns into random turbulence in the air until all the energy that was supplied is consumed. But surely lightning strikes must also cause heating? Electric arc discharges on the order of gigajoules and milliseconds [1] works out to a lot of watts. I guess it averages out though because the amount of timespace with no-lightning-strike is much greater than that with lightning-strike. [1] http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lightning#Harvesting_lightning_energy http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lightning#Harvesting_lightning_...