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Disentangling climatic and anthropogenic controls on global terrestrial evapotranspiration trends

Journal Article · · Environmental Research Letters
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  1. Oak Ridge National Lab. (ORNL), Oak Ridge, TN (United States)
  2. Univ. of Texas, Austin, TX (United States)
  3. California Institute of Technology, Pasadena, CA (United States)
  4. Peking Univ., Beijing (People's Republic of China)
  5. Beijing Normal Univ., Beijing (People's Republic of China)
  6. Northern Arizona Univ., Flagstaff, AZ (United States)
  7. Auburn Univ., Auburn, AL (United States)
  8. Univ. of California, Irvine, CA (United States)
  9. McMaster Univ., Hamilton, ON (Canada)
  10. Lab. des Sciences du Climat et de l'Environnement, Gif sur Yvette (France)
  11. Pacific Northwest National Lab. (PNNL), Richland, WA (United States)
  12. National Institute for Environmental Studies, Ibaraki (Japan)
  13. Univ. of Illinois, Urbana, IL (United States)
  14. Tsinghua Univ., Beijing (People's Republic of China)
  15. Carnegie Institution for Science, Stanford, CA (United States)
  16. Univ. of Quebec at Montreal (UQAM), Montreal, QC (Canada)
  17. Montana State Univ., Bozeman, MT (United States)
  18. Univ. of Colorado, Boulder, CO (United States)
  19. National Aeronautics and Space Administration, Mountain View, CA (United States)
  20. Univ. of Maryland, College Park, MD (United States)
  21. Northwest A&F Univ., Yangling (People's Republic of China)
+ Show Author Affiliations
Here, we examined natural and anthropogenic controls on terrestrial evapotranspiration (ET) changes from 1982-2010 using multiple estimates from remote sensing-based datasets and process-oriented land surface models. A significant increased trend of ET in each hemisphere was consistently revealed by observationally-constrained data and multi-model ensembles that considered historic natural and anthropogenic drivers. The climate impacts were simulated to determine the spatiotemporal variations in ET. Globally, rising CO2 ranked second in these models after the predominant climatic influences, and yielded a decreasing trend in canopy transpiration and ET, especially for tropical forests and high-latitude shrub land. Increased nitrogen deposition slightly amplified global ET via enhanced plant growth. Land-use-induced ET responses, albeit with substantial uncertainties across the factorial analysis, were minor globally, but pronounced locally, particularly over regions with intensive land-cover changes. Our study highlights the importance of employing multi-stream ET and ET-component estimates to quantify the strengthening anthropogenic fingerprint in the global hydrologic cycle.
Research Organization:
Oak Ridge National Laboratory (ORNL), Oak Ridge, TN (United States); Pacific Northwest National Laboratory (PNNL), Richland, WA (United States)
Sponsoring Organization:
USDOE; USDOE Office of Science (SC)
Grant/Contract Number:
AC05-00OR22725; AC05-76RL01830
OSTI ID:
1256803
Alternate ID(s):
OSTI ID: 1337293
Report Number(s):
PNNL-SA--117647; KP1702010; ERKP788
Journal Information:
Environmental Research Letters, Journal Name: Environmental Research Letters Journal Issue: 9 Vol. 10; ISSN 1748-9326
Publisher:
IOP PublishingCopyright Statement
Country of Publication:
United States
Language:
English

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Multi-decadal trends in global terrestrial evapotranspiration and its components journal January 2016
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Fluctuations and Correlations of Transmission Eigenchannels in Diffusive Media journal October 2020
Uncertainty analysis of terrestrial net primary productivity and net biome productivity in China during 1901-2005 journal May 2016
The future of evapotranspiration: Global requirements for ecosystem functioning, carbon and climate feedbacks, agricultural management, and water resources: THE FUTURE OF EVAPOTRANSPIRATION journal April 2017
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Global Analysis of Ecosystem Evapotranspiration Response to Precipitation Deficits journal December 2017
Systematic variation in evapotranspiration trends and drivers across the Northeastern United States journal September 2018
Impacts of climate variability and landscape pattern change on evapotranspiration in a grassland landscape mosaic journal December 2019
Ensemble simulation of land evapotranspiration in China based on a multi-forcing and multi-model approach journal April 2016
The uncertainties and causes of the recent changes in global evapotranspiration from 1982 to 2010 journal September 2016
Elucidating observed land surface feedbacks across sub-Saharan Africa journal March 2019
Observed land surface feedbacks on the Australian monsoon system journal February 2020
The response of vegetation to rising CO2 concentrations plays an important role in future changes in the hydrological cycle journal April 2018
Changes in Evapotranspiration Over Global Semiarid Regions 1984–2013 journal March 2019
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Ecohydrological Processes Explain Urban Dry Island Effects in a Wet Region, Southern China journal September 2018
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Related Subjects

54 ENVIRONMENTAL SCIENCES
MsTMIP
evapotranspiration
evapotransportation
factorial analysis
natural and anthropogenic controls