Convection Current


convection current

[kən′vek·shən ‚kər·ənt] (electronics) The time rate at which the electric charges of an electron stream are transported through a given surface. (geophysics) Mass movement of subcrustal or mantle material as the result of temperature variations. (meteorology) Any current of air involved in convection; usually, the upward-moving portion of a convection circulation, such as a thermal or the updraft in cumulus clouds. Also known as convective current.

Convection Current

 

the transfer of electric charges by the movement of a charged macroscopic body. From the viewpoint of electron theory, any transfer of charges is, in the final analysis, due to the convection (or movement) of charged microparticles. This explains the complete identity between the magnetic properties of convection current and a conduction current (that is, the ordered movement of electrons, ions, and other particles relative to a body), which was established by the experiments of the American physicist G. Rowland (1879) and the Russian physicist A. A. Eikhenval’d (1903).

convection current

The transfer of heat that results from the movement of air from one location to another, usually as a result of a stream of air produced by thermal convection caused by differences in temperature.