Some aspects of stratospheric electric fields due to a constant convection cuurent density‐charge model of cloud structure

Abstract

This brief report presents the results of the numeric calculation of the electric field due to positive polarity clouds at balloon altitudes with a constant convection current density (CC) model of charge distribution. For reasonable values of the parameters involved, we show that at horizontal distances larger than approximately 20 km from the top of the cloud, the CC model can give vertical electric fields with similar large magnitudes (volts per meter) in both directions in the stratosphere. We claim that even this simple charge distribution model may explain some “unusual” observed signatures during several events of balloon‐borne electric field measurements reported in the literature, without the necessity to search for more complicated charge distribution models. Another aspect found in association with the CC model is that the ratio between the vertical and horizontal electric fields increases when the balloon drifts away to the cloud. As far as we know, this latter aspect has not been observed in balloon electric field measurements as yet. We suggest that measurements associated with large storms (with tens to hundreds of Coulombs) should be useful for identifying this aspect of the electric field measurements.