A high-altitude balloon experiment to probe stratospheric electric fields from low latitudes
The Earth's electrical environment hosts a giant electrical circuit, often referred to as the global electric circuit (GEC), linking the various sources of electrical generators located in the lower atmosphere, the ionosphere and the magnetosphere. The middle atmosphere (stratosphere and mes...
| Main Authors: | , , , , , |
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| Format: | Article |
| Language: | English |
| Published: |
Copernicus Publications
2017-02-01
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| Series: | Annales Geophysicae |
| Online Access: | https://www.ann-geophys.net/35/189/2017/angeo-35-189-2017.pdf |
| Summary: | The Earth's electrical environment hosts a giant electrical circuit, often
referred to as the global electric circuit (GEC), linking the various sources
of electrical generators located in the lower atmosphere, the ionosphere and
the magnetosphere. The middle atmosphere (stratosphere and mesosphere) has
been traditionally believed to be passively transmitting electric fields
generated elsewhere. Some observations have reported anomalously large electric
fields at these altitudes, and the scientific community has had to revisit the
earlier hypothesis time and again. At stratospheric altitudes and especially
at low latitudes, horizontal electric fields are believed to be of
ionospheric origin. Though measurements of these fields from a balloon
platform are challenging because of their small magnitudes (around a few
mV m<sup>−1</sup>), a suitably
designed long-duration balloon experiment capable of detecting such small
fields can provide useful information on the time evolution of ionospheric
electric fields, which is otherwise possible only using radar or satellite
in situ measurements. We present herein details of one such experiment, BEENS
(Balloon Experiment on the Electrodynamics of Near Space), carried out from a
low-latitude site in India. The instrument package for this experiment is
comprised of four deployable booms for measurements of horizontal electric
fields and one inclined boom for vertical electric field measurements, all
equipped with conducting spheres at the tip. The experiment was conducted
from Hyderabad (17.5° N, 78.6° E) during the post-midnight
hours on 14 December 2013. In spite of a few shortcomings we report herein, a
noticeable feature of the observations has been the detection of horizontal
electric fields of ∼ 5 mV m<sup>−1</sup> at the stratospheric altitudes of
∼ 35 km. |
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| ISSN: | 0992-7689 1432-0576 |