Variations of meteorological and atmospheric-electrical quantities in the plumes from powerful forest fires
- Institute of Monitoring of Climatic and Ecological Systems SB RAS, Russia
- V.E. Zuev Institute of Atmospheric Optics SB RAS, Russia
Extreme weather conditions, which prevailed in summer in the European part
of Russia in 2002 and 2010 and in Siberia in 2004 and 2012, led to the
emergence of a large number of forest and peat fires, accompanied by sever
smog in the atmosphere.
Those exceptions, which are formed in the smog from forest fires, are
among the uncertainties in terms of variations of the electrical
parameters of the near ground atmosphere. During forest fires in Tomsk
region in 2004, the following was discovered. With the increase of smoke
(with the concentration of smoke particles) the electric field in the
surface layer decreases from 200 to 30-60 V/m. Detailed studies of these
processes have been carried out during long forest fires in Siberia in the
summer of 2012.
The report presents the results of these studies. Analysis of monitoring
data of atmospheric electrical parameters during maximum smoke aerosol
concentrations in the surface layer of remote forest fires allowed us for
the first time to detect the effect of daily reversals of the electric
field intensity with the range from 300 and more V/m in daytime to - 300
V/m at night. The observed effect on the diurnal variation of electric
field in the surface layer is distinguished from the well-known facts,
that it is determined in the smog from forest fires, often covering large
areas of many regions for a long time. The proposed interpretation of this
effect does not contradict the well-known diffusion-kinetic model of
aerosol ionic charge.