OCG533, Fall 2001
Homework assignment 2, due 10 September 2001
Comma abuse
Here are ten sentences from the scientific literature. Comment on the right or wrong use of commas in each.
1. On February 2, 1989, the DC-8 flew north from Norway to Spitsbergen, then south to Iceland where it performed a series of maneuvers.
2. The atmosphere was not cold enough for ice clouds to form, but 10 ppbv of nitric acid would have been supersaturated over a large portion of the flight..
3. Of the PSCs that were not water ice, about 35% were solid, 44% were mixed phase, and 19% were liquid.
4. The ratios are remarkably constant, suggesting a common source over the whole ocean or multiple sources with very similar emission patterns.
5. One strong feature emerging from macroalgal flux measurements is that bromoform is invariably the dominant macroalgal by-product, although the actual ratios of the bromoalkane release vary from one study to another.
6. Previous bromoform source fluxes estimated from observed remote marine atmospheric mixing ratios coupled with lifetime calculations [Penkett et al., 1985] and from surface seawater measurements combined with ocean-atmosphere exchange rates [Liss and Slater, 1974] were in the range 10–20 x 1011 g yr–1.
7. In this study so far we have considered only removal by HO and by photolysis.
8. The data are from three separate instruments, for molecules with a variety of chemical characteristics, and are taken over a wide geographic domain.
9. The points corresponding to methyl ethyl ketone, acetone, methanol. benzene, propane, ethane, acetylene, and CO (solid circles) as well as toluene and hydroxyacetone are correlated and show an inverse dependence of variability with lifetime.
10. The maximum bromide concentration occurred approximately 5 m downgradient of the source trench with the advancing side of the plume extending downgradient more than 100 m and the trailing side of the plume extending upgradient only a few meters.
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