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Ions in Nature
Natural
abundance
In nature, ions are generated in abundance
wherever energy is transferred into the air. For example by
ultra-violet light from the
sun, by lightning and thunderstorms, by friction within wind and rain,
the splitting
of water into droplets by waterfalls and surf - and by natural
radiation in rocks and soil.
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Negative
ions - refreshing
Places
we find refreshing, such as in the mountains, near waterfalls and
seashores have high concentrations of negative ions. It is no
coincidence that this is where health resorts are traditionally
situated.
But areas with high levels of positive
ions often leave us feeling uncomfortable and irritable.
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Positive
ions - oppressive
Many people find
the atmosphere just before a
storm is 'heavy' and oppressive. This has been attributed to the high
levels of positive
ions that build up in the air, which are also believed to be the
trigger of
"storm-sensitivity" in asthmatics and many others.
Certainly, in laboratory conditions, similar symptoms could be
triggered in subjects when they were exposed to abnormally high levels
of positive ions.
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This photograph
was taken during some unusually fierce storms which swept across the
south east of the UK in 1994. In
the hours before the storms arrived, hundreds of people had reported to
hospital with severe asthma attacks. Was it due to positive ions?
Many studies
suggest it could be!
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Immediately after
the storm
the air feels clean and refreshed with
negative ions.
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Ionosphere
In the upper
atmosphere the action of
the Sun's ultra violet rays forms a thick band of ions called the
ionosphere, starting at 60 km and finishing around 100
km above the Earth. It is the ionosphere that reflects radio
waves back to earth, allowing us
to broadcast over long distances. The reason distant stations fade
after dark is because the ions diminish as the sunlight disappears.
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Aurora
The Sun is constantly ejecting streams
of charged particles into space. (This is known as the solar wind). As
these particles approach the Earth they are caught in its magnetic
field and swept round to the North and South poles. Pouring into the
atmosphere, they ionize its component gases in a spectacular display of
glowing colours, called the Aurora.
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As
you can see,
Our
atmosphere is absolutely teeming with ions.
Nature was making them
even before life began. Indeed scientists believe that ionization, in
the form of lightning, was probably instrumental in the formation of
ammino acids - the essential components for the beginnings of life!
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air
ionizers