Local influences on the composition of precipitation on Bermuda Academic Article uri icon

abstract

  • The island of Bermuda has been used to characterize the composition of precipitation over the western north Atlantic Ocean. However, Bermuda is a small, heavily populated island and the possibility exists that local processes can influence the composition of precipitation. This paper documents that enrichments of sea-salt in Bermuda precipitation, relative to open ocean precipitation, can occur due to ocean-island turbulence. At present it is not possible to determine whether the enrichments are due to island sources or spatial variability in the precipitation scavenging process. By assuming the latter effect to be negligible, the upper limits of the effect of island sources on the concentrations of the nss components are ~ 5-30%, depending on the species. Precipitation associated with westerly airflow is the least affected by local sources. -from Authors

published proceedings

  • Tellus, Series B

author list (cited authors)

  • Galloway, J. N., Tokos, J. J., Knap, A. H., & Keene, W. C.

complete list of authors

  • Galloway, JN||Tokos, JJ||Knap, AH||Keene, WC

publication date

  • January 1988