Comparison of Ocean and Island Rainfall in the Tropical North Pacific

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Abstract
Recent estimates of oceanic rainfall were compared with measured amounts at 35 islands in the central and western North Pacific. A group of stations on small atolls in a region of convective rainfall had amounts that were 1.2 times that over the open ocean; but other low islands in an area of frontal rain received over twice as much rainfall as at sea. The greatest rainfall occurred at a group of high islands in the western Pacific. Even on small atolls, island data are not reliable indices of oceanic rainfall.