Relationship between charge-relaxation time and vertical electric field during the MY 34 dust season. Each point represents a model grid cell and is colored by latitude. The dashed line shows the best-fit power-law scaling, ﹩{\tau }_{e}\propto {E}_{z}^{0.19}﹩, with R² = 0.60. The positive dependence indicates that stronger near-surface electric fields are more likely to occur where the relaxation times are longer, consistent with reduced conductivity favoring both field persistence and growth. The remaining spread shows that conductivity is only one part of the control system, and that dust-driven source currents and local atmospheric conditions also contribute significantly to field variability.