An atmospheric electrical method to determine the eddy diffusion coefficient

Abstract

The ion-aerosol balance equations are solved to get the profiles of atmospheric electric parameters over the ground surface in an aerosol-rich environment under the conditions of surface radioactivity. Combining the earlier results for low aerosol concentrations and the present results for high aerosol concentrations, a relation is obtained between the average value of atmospheric electric space charge in the lowest ~2 m, the surface electric field and eddy diffusivity/aerosol concentration. The values of eddy diffusivity estimated from this method using some earlier measurements of space charge and surface electric field are in reasonably good agreement with those calculated from other standard methods using meteorological or electrical variables.