The Response of Surface-Level Atmospheric Electrical Parameters in Israel to Severe Space Weather Events

We report on ground-based measurements of the atmospheric electric field (Ez) and current density (Jz) that were conducted from Israel at two locations. At the Mt. Hermon station (34.45 N, 2020 m AMSL) located in northern Israel near the Syrian-Lebanon border and at the Wise astronomical observatory in the Negev desert highland plateau of southern Israel (31.18 N, 870 m AMSL). We investigated possible effects of strong, short-term solar events that occurred during days that are defined meteorologically as fair-weather days. The first case study (St. Patrick Day, 17 March 2015) was classified as the strongest event of 2015. The second case study (8 Sep 2017) was categorized as the strongest event of 2017 and the 12 th strongest event on record to date. The results show that electrical parameters measured at ground level at both stations are affected during the two massive proton events and the ensuing geomagnetic storms. We deduce that our stations are both near the detection threshold of global electrical circuit response to solar disturbances because the magnetospheric shielding is strong enough to stop most of the flux of energetic particles, almost obscuring noticeable impacts that are above the daily variations induced by local meteorological conditions.