Impact of local and global factors and meteorological parameters in temporal variation of atmospheric potential gradient

In this research work, we have performed comparative diurnal variations of atmospheric Potential Gradient (PG) of fair-weather days by using the data of three stations installed in Northern, Pakistan for the year 2018. We investigated the impact of both local and global factors and meteorological parameters in the diurnal variation of atmospheric Potential Gradient on the annual and seasonal time scale. We observed two peaks, primary and secondary. This is because of the land-based measurements of annual and seasonal variations. The annual average curve of Potential Gradient of all three stations: Islamabad (CES), Muzaffarabad (MZF), and Balakot (BKT) demonstrated a notable deviation from the standard oceanic Carnegie curve. The atmospheric Potential Gradient variations are due to numerous meteorological factors e.g., air pollution, humidity, aerosol particles, fog, and temperature. Among three stations, the MZF station is located in highland (mountainous) and it demonstrated a higher atmospheric Potential Gradient. We further differentiate the results of our three stations with global results for authenticity and observed coherence between them. In addition, a positive correlation of fair-weather Potential Gradient is observed with temperature and a notable correlation between relative humidity and atmospheric Potential Gradient for all the three observatories.