Comment on “Negatively charged precipitation in a New Mexico thunderstorm” by Thomas C. Marshall and Stephen J. Marsh and “Charged precipitation measurements before the first lightning flash in a thunderstorm” by Stephen J. Marsh and Thomas C. Marshall

Electrical measurements made from balloons by Marshall and Marsh [1993] and Marsh and Marshall [1993] (hereinafter referred to as MM) show that in some cases the net charge camSeal on the precipitation particles is sufficient, or even more than sufficient, to account for the intensity of the electric fields within the cloud.They believe these observations are of importance because they indicate that a charge separation process involving precipitation particles is responsible for lighming.This is in contrast to the ion attachment process envisioned by Grenet [1947], in which the charge carried by precipitation plays only a minor role.It must be recognized, however, that these balloon measurements of the density of the space charge residing on precipitation particles give values that are higher than those obtained with a different measuring technique.For example, observ•• with doppler radar [Willian• and Lhermitte, 1983] show that the charge carried by precipitation is so small it is doubtful that it is sufficient to account for the electrification of the cloud.Jonsson [1990] has shown that under the conditions to be