An Atmospheric Electrical Measurements Workshop was conducted at the University of Wyoming in which balloon borne comparisons of ionization, conductivity, ion density, air-earth current, and electric field measurements were made. After some deliberation there now appears to be relatively good agreement between the various experimental groups with a major exception being the ion density measurements. The source of this discrepancy is perhaps the poorly defined flow rate through some types of ion counters. Another important experimental result indicates that the direct measurements of air-earth current are almost exactly one half the value calculated from the total conductivity and electric field profiles. The values of the small ion mobility calculated from the workshop data suggest a relatively constant value to about 30 km, the maximum altitude of the soundings.
Atmospheric electricity measurements are performed all over the globe for getting a better understanding of the processes and phenomena operating in the Earth's electric atmosphere, ionosphere and magnetosphere.
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