Skip to Main Content
U.S. Forest Service
Caring for the land and serving people

United States Department of Agriculture

Home > Search > Publication Information

  1. Characteristics of fog and fogwater fluxes in a Puerto Rican elfin cloud forest.

    Share via EmailShare on FacebookShare on LinkedInShare on Twitter
    Dislike this pubLike this pub
    Author(s): Werner Eugster; Reto Burkard; Friso Holwerda; Frederick N. Scatena; L.A.(Sampurno) Bruijnzeel
    Date: 2006
    Source: Agricultural and Forest Meteorology 139 :288–306
    Publication Series: Miscellaneous Publication
    PDF: View PDF  (1.61 B)

    Description

    The Luquillo Mountains of northeastern Puerto Rico harbours important fractions of tropical montane cloud forests. Although it is well known that the frequent occurrence of dense fog is a common climatic characteristic of cloud forests around the world, it is poorly understood how fog processes shape and influence these ecosystems. Our study focuses on the physical characteristics of fog and quantifies the fogwater input to elfin cloud forest using direct eddy covariance net flux measurements during a 43-day period in 2002.We used an ultrasonic anemometer–thermometer in combination with a size-resolving cloud droplet spectrometer capable of providing number counts in 40 droplet size classes at a rate of 12.5 times per second. Fog occurred during 85% of the time, and dense fog with a visibility <200 m persisted during 74% of the period. Fog droplet size depended linearly on liquid water content(r2 ¼ 0:89) with a volume-weighted mean diameter of 13.8 mm. Due to the high frequency of occurrence of fog the total fogwater deposition measured with the eddy covariance method and corrected for condensation and advection effects in the persistent upslope air flow, averaged 4.36 mm day1, rainfall during the same period was 28 mm day1. Thus, our estimates of the contribution of fogwater to the hydrological budget of elfin cloud forests is considerable and higher than in any other location for which comparable data exist but still not a very large component in the hydrological budget. For estimating fogwater fluxes for locations without detailed information about fog droplet distributions we provide simple empirical relationships using visibility data.

    Publication Notes

    • We recommend that you also print this page and attach it to the printout of the article, to retain the full citation information.
    • This article was written and prepared by U.S. Government employees on official time, and is therefore in the public domain.

    Citation

    Eugster, Werner ; Burkard, Reto; Holwerda, Friso; Scatena, Frederick N.; Bruijnzeel, L.A.(Sampurno) 2006. Characteristics of fog and fogwater fluxes in a Puerto Rican elfin cloud forest. Agricultural and Forest Meteorology 139 :288–306

    Keywords

    Fog, Rain, Elfin cloud forest, Humid tropics, Eddy covariance, Flux measurements, Deposition

    Related Search

    XML: View XML
Show More
Show Fewer
Jump to Top of Page
https://www.fs.usda.gov/treesearch/pubs/30046