ionization

• stripping atoms of outer (chemically active) electrons

42:3.86. Ion­ized mat­ter—in­di­vid­ual atoms stripped of their outer (chem­i­cally ac­tive) elec­trons by elec­tri­cal, ther­mal, or X-ray ac­tiv­i­ties and by sol­vents.

• heat in stratosphere ionizes oxygen

58:2.6The lower five or six miles of the earth’s at­mo­sphere is the tro­po­sphere; this is the re­gion of winds and air cur­rents which pro­vide weather phe­nom­ena. Above this re­gion is the in­ner iono­sphere and next above is the strato­sphere. As­cend­ing from the sur­face of the earth, the tem­per­a­ture steadily falls for six or eight miles, at which height it reg­is­ters around 70 de­grees be­low zero F. This tem­per­a­ture range of from 65 to 70 de­grees be­low zero F. is un­changed in the fur­ther as­cent for forty miles; this realm of con­stant tem­per­a­ture is the strato­sphere. At a height of forty-five or fifty miles, the tem­per­a­ture be­gins to rise, and this in­crease con­tin­ues un­til, at the level of the au­ro­ral dis­plays, a tem­per­a­ture of 1200° F. is at­tained, and it is this in­tense heat that ion­izes the oxy­gen. But tem­per­a­ture in such a rar­efied at­mo­sphere is hardly com­pa­ra­ble with heat reck­on­ing at the sur­face of the earth. Bear in mind that one half of all your at­mo­sphere is to be found in the first three miles. The height of the earth’s at­mo­sphere is in­di­cated by the high­est au­ro­ral stream­ers—about four hun­dred miles.

• produces aural displays in atmosphere

58:2.8The power of sun­spots to al­ter light fre­quen­cies shows that these so­lar storm cen­ters func­tion as enor­mous mag­nets. Such mag­netic fields are able to hurl charged par­ti­cles from the sun­spot craters out through space to the earth’s outer at­mo­sphere, where their ion­iz­ing in­flu­ence pro­duces such spec­tac­u­lar au­ro­ral dis­plays. There­fore do you have the great­est au­ro­ral phe­nom­ena when sun­spots are at their height—or soon there­after—at which time the spots are more gen­er­ally equa­to­ri­ally sit­u­ated.

• causes compass variation

58:2.9Even the com­pass nee­dle is re­spon­sive to this so­lar in­flu­ence since it turns slightly to the east as the sun rises and slightly to the west as the sun nears set­ting. This hap­pens ev­ery day, but dur­ing the height of sun­spot cy­cles this vari­a­tion of the com­pass is twice as great. These di­ur­nal wan­der­ings of the com­pass are in re­sponse to the in­creased ion­iza­tion of the up­per at­mo­sphere, which is pro­duced by the sun­light.