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| Titel |
Continental moisture recycling as a Poisson process |
| VerfasserIn |
H. F. Goessling, C. H. Reick |
| Medientyp |
Artikel
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| Sprache |
Englisch
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| ISSN |
1027-5606
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| Digitales Dokument |
URL |
| Erschienen |
In: Hydrology and Earth System Sciences ; 17, no. 10 ; Nr. 17, no. 10 (2013-10-23), S.4133-4142 |
| Datensatznummer |
250085969
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| Publikation (Nr.) |
 copernicus.org/hess-17-4133-2013.pdf |
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| Zusammenfassung |
On their journey over large land masses, water molecules
experience a number of precipitation–evaporation cycles (recycling
events). We derive analytically the frequency distributions of
recycling events for the water molecules contained in a given air
parcel. Given the validity of certain simplifying assumptions,
the frequency distribution of recycling events is shown to develop either into
a Poisson distribution or a geometric distribution.
We distinguish two cases: in case (A) recycling events are counted
since the water molecules were last advected across the ocean–land
boundary. In case (B) recycling events are counted since the water
molecules were last evaporated from the ocean. For case B we show by
means of a~simple scale analysis that, given the conditions on
earth, realistic frequency distributions may be regarded as
a mixture of a Poisson distribution and a geometric distribution. By
contrast, in case A the Poisson distribution generally appears as
a reasonable approximation. This conclusion is consistent with the
simulation results of an earlier study where an atmospheric general
circulation model equipped with water vapor tracers was used. Our
results demonstrate that continental moisture recycling can be
interpreted as a Poisson process. |
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