Aircraft measurements of fair weather electric field noise within the Austausch layer

A trailing wire antenna was used as a sensor for airborne measurements of weak atmospheric electric fields in the 60- to 3000-mv/m range. This technique provided ±30-volt antenna signals from horizontal components of fields produced by fair weather space-charge concentrations within the austausch layer. The average separation of charge centers was 536 meters. The maximum space-charge density detected was 6.3 × 10−11 coulomb m−3. The weak fields were found to be strongly dependent on direct solar input to the atmosphere and broadly distributed, in both altitude and distance within the austausch layer only.