Spatiotemporal structures of electric field and space charge in the surface atmospheric layer

Abstract

As a result of electric field measurements in remote points of the surface layer and analysis of obtained statistical characteristics (structural function, temporal spectra) two typical scales of electric field pulsations are found. The lowest one L 0 ≃ 20–60 m coincides with an external scale of neutral gas turbulence under fair weather conditions. The highest scale L 1 ≳ 60 m testifies to the existence of long‐time electric field perturbations which lead to the anomalous growth of the structural function D E (r) at a distance r > L 1 . The relation between the scales L 0 and L 1 depends on the particular experimental conditions. The theoretical model for the function D E (r) has been developed, taking into account the turbulent mixing of charged particles and thermal convection in the surface layer. It is shown that the expression for D E consists of two parts. The first part describes fluctuations caused by the charge separation due to neutral gas turbulent mixing; the second part gives a contribution of large‐scale convective cells, which can transfer a volume charge along the Earth's surface.