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Surface atmospheric electric field variability on the Qinghai-Tibet Plateau

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Abstract

The variability in the atmospheric electric field needs to be understood before considering the properties of the atmospheric electrostatic distribution on the Tibetan Plateau. The relationship between each meteorological parameter and the atmospheric electric field should be carefully considered. In this article, atmospheric electric field observations and their effects from weather conditions at Gar Station (80.13°E, 32.52°N, altitude 4259 m) for the period from November 2021 to October 2022 are presented. After defining strict and reliable criteria for fair weather, the authors show the diurnal variation curve of the average fair weather atmospheric electric field, which has “double peaks and double valleys”. How various meteorological conditions affect variability in the atmospheric electric field and comparisons between the Gar curve and “Carnegie curves” are also revealed.

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Data availability

In this study, the weather data can be found at the website (https://q-weather.info), the atmospheric electric field datasets can be found online at the following link (https://sadr.scidb.cn/detail?dataSetId=8effb327999348548544b64a0b2fe02a) (https://doi.org/10.57760/sciencedb.o00009.00388).

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Acknowledgements

The authors would like to thank the website https://q-weather.info for providing the meteorological data.

Funding

This research was funded by the Strategic Pioneer Program on Space Science, Chinese Academy of Sciences (Grant Nos. XDA17010301, XDA15052500, and XDA15350201) and by the National Natural Science Foundation of China (Grant Nos. 41874175 and 41931073). The authors thank the Chinese Meridian Project, Ground-Based Space Environment Monitoring Network (Meridian Project II), the Specialized Research Fund for State Key Laboratories and Pandeng Program of NSSC and the International Partnership Program of Chinese Academy of Sciences (Grant No. 183311KYSB20200003).

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Contributions

TC conceptualized the study. LL processed and analyzed the data. TC and LL prepared the original draft, with contributions from all authors. CC, ST, SW, WL and JL contributed to the discussion. All authors have read and approved the final manuscript.

Corresponding author

Correspondence to Tao Chen.

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The authors declare that this research was conducted in the absence of any commercial or financial relationship that could be construed as a potential conflict of interest.

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Li, L., Chen, T., Ti, S. et al. Surface atmospheric electric field variability on the Qinghai-Tibet Plateau. Meteorol Atmos Phys 135, 17 (2023). https://doi.org/10.1007/s00703-023-00955-4

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