Balloon-borne measurements of ion conductivity over low latitude stratosphere

Latitude gradients in the natural variance in stratospheric conductivity – Implications for studies of long-term changes

“…The balloon flights were conducted during many separate balloon campaigns, some by our groups and others taken from the literature : 1973, and 19991975 at Roberval, Quebec;1980-1981at Siple Station, Antarctica, 1985at South Pole, 1990-2003from Syowa Station, Antarctica, 1999at Ottumwa, Iowa, 1983-84 and 1992 from Christchurch, New Zealand, six flights from 1986 to 1994 from Hyderabad, India, and several flights from 1978, 1979, and 1983 from Laramie, Wyoming (Paltridge, 1965;Benbrook et al, 1974;Morita and Ishikawa, 1976;Widdell et al, 1976;Rosen et al, 1978Rosen et al, , 1982Rosen et al, , 1985Bering et al, 1980Bering et al, , 1987Bering et al, , 2003Bering et al, , 2005Holzworth, 1981Holzworth, , 1991Rosen and Hofmann, 1981;Holzworth et al, 1984Holzworth et al, , 1986Holzworth et al, , 2005Gupta and Narayan, 1987;Norville and Holzworth, 1987;Byrne et al, 1990Byrne et al, , 1991Udare et al, 1991;Gupta et al, 1992;Ejiri et al, 1995;Ebihara et al, 1996;Chakravarty et al, 1997;Gupta, 2000Gupta, , 2004. The locations of the...…”

Effect of photoelectric emission on blunt probe conductivity measurements in the stratosphere

“…In this experiment, the gondola is covered with aluminum sheets coated with aquadag on all sides. The dimensions of the gondola is approximately 1 m  1 m  1.2 m. Gupta and Narayan (1987) observed daytime increase in s À by a factor of $1.5 at 35 km in a measurement using the relaxation time method and suggested photodissociation of the ions as a possible explanation (Gupta et al, 1992). However, the present study indicates the possibility of atmospheric contamination by photoemission from the instrument body.…”

“…Photoemission from payload surfaces contaminating positive polar conductivity measurements in the upper stratosphere has been observed on several balloon experiments (Holzworth et al, 1984;Byrne et al, 1986;Gupta and Narayan, 1987;Gupta et al, 1992;Norville and Holzworth, 1987;Byrne et al, 1988;Chakrabarty et al, 1994;Saba et al, 1999;Bering et al, 2003Bering et al, , 2005Kokorowski et al, 2006). The principal agent of photoemission from stratospheric payloads is the solar UV radiations in the 190-230 nm wavelength band (Byrne et al, 1990), which can penetrate down to the altitudes of 25 km.…”

A high-altitude balloon experiment to probe stratospheric electric fields from low latitudes

“…Several flights have been conducted in the past from the same location during the Indian Middle Atmosphere Program in the 1980s (Gupta and Narayan, 1987;Garg et al, 1989;Sampath et al, 1989;Udare et al, 1991). Most of those flights were aimed at making measurements of polar conductivities, ion densities and mobilities, though a few of them yielded vertical electric field profiles during the balloon ascents.…”