Chemical data derived from air and precipitation samples collected during the Global Change Expedition/Coordinated Air‐Sea Experiment/ Western Atlantic Ocean Experiment (GCE/CASE/WATOX) over the North Atlantic Ocean (NAO) are interpreted using simple box models. Estimated total sulfur (S) deposition fluxes from air masses with tropical oceanic, African, clean North American, and polluted North American origins are 4.4, 16, 33, and 70 μmol m−2 day−1, respectively, with associated uncertainties of at least factors of 2 to 3. Crude estimates of the fractions of deposition attributable to marine biogenic versus anthropogenic S sources suggest that the latter may be enhancing the natural NAO atmospheric S cycle by a factor of 0.5 to 0.8. Combination with similar estimates for the North Pacific region [Savoie and Prospero, 1989] yields an overall, area‐weighted enhancement factor of approximately 0.3 for northern hemisphere ocean areas, consistent with estimates by Wigley [1989] based on climate modeling studies.
