EMPIRICAL FACTORS FOR ESTIMATING OPEN‐WATER EVAPORATION FROM POTENTIAL EVAPORATION

ABSTRACT For many years, the standard method for estimating rates of evaporation from open water has been to apply empirical factors to potential evaporation data. However, significant errors can occur through the use of these factors, essentially due to the limitations of the measurements upon which they are based. New empirical factors are presented here for use with the Meteorological Office Rainfall and Evaporation Calculation System for grass potential evaporation and Penman potential evaporation. However, uncertainty in the estimated evaporation rates remains at least 5–12 mm per month.