Local and global impacts on the fair-weather electric field in Israel

Ground-based measurements of the vertical electric field (Ez or potential gradient) during fair weather days in the Negev desert, southern Israel are presented for the period June 2013-July 2015. We show results of the diurnal variation of Ez on seasonal and annual time scales, and make comparisons with the well-known Carnegie curve. We show a positive correlation between the diurnal Ez values and the number of global thunderstorm clusters on the same days. However, the diurnal Ez curves observed in the Negev desert show a local morning peak (8-10 UT) that is missing from the Carnegie Curve, but observed in other land-based Ez data from around the world. The morning peak is assumed to be a local effect and shown to correlate with a peak in the local aerosol loading in the lower atmosphere due to the increase in turbulence and mixing caused by solar heating in the morning hours.