Comparative analysis of local and global atmospheric electric field at the Northern Pakistan

Abstract Daily variations of the Atmospheric Electric Field (AEF) allow to observe separately the atmospheric electricity due to global and local factors. Observations of the AEF are made for three different sites of Pakistan during fair weather conditions. These three sites are Islamabad (ISB), Muzaffarabad (MZF) and Balakot (BKT). Analyses of the diurnal variations of the atmospheric electric field for these sites are discussed in this paper with respect to annual and seasonal behavior. Muzaffarabad and Balakot sites show two daily maxima and Islamabad site shows single maxima, characteristic of local influences, such as the aerosol, sunrise effect and “Austausch effect” or exchange layer effect. Later, these results are compared globally with land based measurements available in the literature and with the Carnegie curve. Local effects found to be dominant among these sites with respect to one another due to geographical location, climate and different meteorological parameters. This is the first different creation of the ISB-MZF-BKT database which will be very effective to improve the information of atmospheric electricity in the complex processes due to weather and climate. This database from Pakistan will be useful for the scientific community for further understating and investigation of the Global Electric Circuit (GEC).