This paper is about electric charge effects on the coalescence of small particles, during collisions between them, in the Earth's mesosphere and lower thermosphere, at temperatures around 150K. What is new is the treatment of the effects of point charges on particles of low dielectric constant, on the aggregation probability in such collisions. There has been much previous work in atmospheric sciences on collisions of small charged particles; with each other, with water droplets, and between

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... er droplets. Since this paper is applying results from chemical and colloidal physics to the atmosphere, it would be appropriate to refer to previous work in that field. The attraction between a charged dielectric sphere to a charged conducting sphere was treated in 1976 by Grover (Pure and applied Geophysics, 114, 521-539), for both the presence C1 ACPD Interactive comment Printer-friendly version Discussion paper