Observations from the one year electric field Study-North Slope of Alaska (OYES-NSA) field campaign, and their implications for observing the distribution of global electrified cloud activity

For over a century, the electric Potential Gradient (PG) of the atmosphere has been measured and studied. The local vertical electric field (E_z) is strongly influenced by the presence of lightning, electrified clouds, rainfall, aerosols, and many others. The One Year Electric Field Study-North Slope of Alaska (OYES-NSA) field campaign was established in the summer of 2017 to measure the vertical electric field at the ARM site in Barrow, Alaska alongside a wide array of supplementary instrumentation, including a Micro-Pulse Lidar and upward facing Ka-band radar. Two years of observations (072017-062019) have shown the possibility to quantify the local effects from aerosols and clouds observed by the Lidar and Radar on the measured E_Z. Throughout the manuscript, the physics convention of negative downward fair-weather electric fields is used. Three cases (convective clouds, high concentration of near surface aerosols, and blowing snow) are used to demonstrate the localized effects on the measured E_Z. Utilizing the relationships between E_Z and backscatter/reflectivity, we have developed a methodology to distinguish samples with local influences. A fair-weather (FW) condition is determined to be associated with a low Lidar backscattering (less than 15 km⁻¹sr⁻¹), in the presence of no significant cloud activity (radar reflectivity less than −10dBZ). The samples satisfying these criteria are found with a 5-min averaged standard deviation of less than 15 V/m, and E_Z between −250 V/m to −50 V/m. Using only properties of the E_Z measurements allows for the simultaneous comparisons of FW at multiple sites, without the need for supplementary information of local weather conditions. Simultaneous E_Z measurements from 8 FW cases are shown between Barrow, AK and Corpus Christi, TX on the timescale of minutes to hours. Similar variation patterns in the FW E_Z are shown at both sites, providing evidence of the global nature of the atmospheric electric system. Furthermore, the seasonal-diurnal variability of FW at multiple sites shows similar distributions of the PG.