H. Tammet et al., EFFECTIVE AREA OF A HORIZONTAL LONG-WIRE ANTENNA COLLECTING THE ATMOSPHERIC ELECTRIC VERTICAL CURRENT, JOURNAL OF GEOPHYSICAL RESEARCH-ATMOSPHERES, 101(D23), 1996, pp. 29671-29677
The effective area of an antenna collecting the vertical air-Earth cur
rent is a coefficient of proportionality between the collected current
and the air-Earth current density. The effective area can be correctl
y defined only if the model behind the proportionality relation is ade
quate. The current collected by a horizontal long-wire antenna is not
exactly proportional to the vertical air-Earth Maxwell current density
because of the different behavior of the displacement and conduction
components of the current. Thus, two different effective areas are sep
arately defined for the displacement and nondisplacement components. F
irst, the dynamic effective area characterizes rapid variations of the
displacement current. It is calculated assuming that the air does not
contain any space charges and that the electric current flow lines ma
tch the electric field lines. Second, the static effective area charac
terizes the nondisplacement current, and it is calculated by taking in
to account the facts that the conductivity close to the wire surface i
s unipolar, that the wind-determined horizontal ion trajectories do no
t match the electric field lines, and that there are space charges due
to the electrode effect of the wire and of the ground. Traditionally,
the atmospheric electric vertical current density measurements have b
een interpreted by using the dynamic effective area as a calibration c
oefficient. This turns out to be a satisfactory approximation in the c
ase of strong turbulence when the near ground space charge layer is hi
gh and the static effective area approaches the dynamic effective area
. In the limit of low turbulence the traditional interpretation result
s in errors of several tens percent. A reduced height of the antenna h
elps to keep the static effective area close to the dynamic effective
area and to suppress the errors.