The temporary impact of Allied bombs on the ionosphere

Many thanks to a number of SWLing Post contributors including, Mike, Dan, Ron and Bob who all shared this article from the BBC World Service:

The bombs used by Allied forces during World War II were so large, they weakened the Earth’s upper atmosphere.

The air raids turned towns to rubble and ash, but now new research shows shockwaves could be felt up to 1,000 km above the UK.

Chris Scott, from the University of Reading said: “I was absolutely astonished [when I found out].

“Each raid released the energy of at least 300 lightning strikes.”

It’s now hoped the research will give us a better understanding of how natural forces such as lightning, volcanic eruptions and earthquakes can affect Earth’s upper atmosphere.

[…]But Chris Scott admits “these were very temporary effects which heated the atmosphere very slightly.”

[…]Chris Scott said: “This [research] is really important if we’re going to understand the ionosphere as a whole.

“We know the ionosphere is controlled by solar activity but it varies much more than can currently be explained.”[…]

Click here to review the full article at the BBC World Service.

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6 thoughts on “The temporary impact of Allied bombs on the ionosphere

  1. Bill L

    Knowing the http address or the DOI (Digital object identifier; see Wikipedia ) part
    one can use Sci-hub (see wikipedia again. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sci-Hub ) to get the full article freely
    Ann. Geophys., 36, 1243–1254, 2018 [ Annales Geophysicae, EGU, European Geophysical Union ]
    https://doi.org/10.5194/angeo-36-1243-2018
    The ionospheric response over the UK to major bombing raids during World War II
    by Christopher J. Scott and Patrick Major

    13 pages, about 4500 words, PDF 26 Refs.
    https://doi.org/10.5194/angeo-36-1243-2018

    You might even use Publish Or Perish 6 from Anne Wil Harzing to further investigate the scholarship.
    For example: See who also cited a reference to the first reference in Scott and Major, “Ionospheric response to earthquakes of different magnitudes: Larger quakes perturb the ionosphere stronger and longer” by Astafyeva, E., Shalimov, S., Olshanskaya, E., and Lognonné, P, [Citing Works] and find 53 references and links, initially sorted by number of further citations.

    https://harzing.com/blog/2017/01/publish-or-perish-general-search-a-swiss-army-knife

    NOTE: “Data availability. The ionospheric data used in this study are publicly
    available via the UK Solar System Data Centre (https://www.
    ukssdc.ac.uk/). The majority of the information about the times,
    dates and munitions used in the bombing raids was obtained from
    the published references within this paper. Additional individual
    sources are cited in Appendix A.

    Reply

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