Abstract
Local evaporation is an important source of moisture for precipitation in many continental regions. The precipitation recycling ratio ( ρ = fraction of total precipitation derived from local evaporation) for four major river basins (the Mackenzie, Mississii, Amazon and Lena) are evaluated by alying the ECMWF ERA-40 reanalysis data to the bulk recycling estimation method of Eltahir and Bras (1994). On an annual basis, recycling is strongest in the Amazon at 30%, and ρ for the other three regions are within 2% of each other with values between 23 and 25%. Apart from the Amazon, the estimated precipitation recycling ratios for all basins exhibit strong seasonal variability, with very low values during the cold season and typically high values during the warm season. The results indicate that close to or more than half of the summer precipitation in the downstream regions of all the test basins is derived from local evaporation. The role of moisture recycling in governing the warm season precipitation variability in the regions is also discussed.
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Szeto, K.K., Liu, J., Wong, A. (2008). Precipitation Recycling in the Mackenzie and Three Other Major River Basins. In: Woo, Mk. (eds) Cold Region Atmospheric and Hydrologic Studies. The Mackenzie GEWEX Experience. Springer, Berlin, Heidelberg. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-540-73936-4_8
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-540-73936-4_8
Publisher Name: Springer, Berlin, Heidelberg
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