A Relationship between the Trajectory of Air Parcels Reaching Rhodesia and the Tritium Content of the Rain

摘要

Tritium analysis of daily rainfall during the 1968/69 rainy season in Rhodesia revealed a correlation between air-mass origin and its tritium content. Tritium values of over 100 tritium units were found on all occasions when a north-westerly airstream had brought lower troposphere air to Rhodesia from Angola or the Congo. When the low-level trajectory suggested an Indian Ocean origin in a north-easterly air stream, the tritium values did not exceed 51 Tritium Units. It is thus suggested that a large proportion of the moisture in north-westerly air is of northern hemisphere origin, whereas the north-easterlies originate in the southern hemisphere.