Peixoto, J. P., and A. H. Oort, 1983: The atmospheric branch of the hydrological cycle and climate. In Variations in the Global Water Budget, Reidel Publishing Co., 5-65.
Abstract: Based on daily observations from about 1000 rawinsonde stations, tables
and global distributions of the various water vapour fields are presented
for mean annual, winter and summer conditions covering the 10-year period,
May 1963 through April 1973. The fields include horizontal maps of precipitable
water, of total zonal, meridional and vertical transports by eddy and mean
circulations, as well as meridional profiles and zonal mean cross-sections
of these quantities. The connections between the atmospheric branch and
the hydrology of the Earth's surface were studied with the aid of the divergence
fields of mean total water vapour flux and through horizontal and vertical
streamfunction analyses. The divergence maps agree quite well with maps
of evaporation minus precipitation (E-P) obtained from classic, climatological
surface data. Over the oceans, the divergence fields show a good correlation
with the evaporation and surface salinity maps.
From the zonal mean streamfunction analyses, the total vertical transports
of water substance were inferred, and compared with the contributions by
standing eddies and mean meridional circulations. The resulting vertical
fluxes by transient eddies show the great importance of cumulus convection
in the tropics for the atmospheric circulation. The main sources and sinks
of atmospheric water vapour, as well as the dominant mean trajectories of
water, are identified. In the light of various climatological and oceanographic
considerations, the results show that the study of the atmospheric branch
is essential to improve understanding of the Earth's water balance on both
regional and global scales.