Plasma vortices in the ionosphere and atmosphere

Vortices observed in ionized clouds of thunderstorm fronts have the nature of plasma vortices. In this work, the need to account for the electrostatic instability of plasma in the origination, intensification, and decay of plasma vortices in the atmosphere is shown. Moisture condensation results in mass-energy transfer under the inhomogeneous spatial distribution of aerosols. If a phase volume of natural oscillations is transformed in the frequency-wave vector space in inhomogeneous plasma, the damping of plasma oscillations promotes an increase in the pressure gradients normal to the geomagnetic field. Excitation of the gradient instabilities is probable in atmospheric plasma formations.