Global variation of transpiration and soil evaporation and the role of their major climate drivers
- Commonwealth Scientific and Industrial Research Organization (CSIRO), Canberra, ACT (Australia). Land and Water
- Chinese Academy of Sciences (CAS), Beijing (China). Inst. of Geographic Sciences and Natural Resources Research
- Sichuan Univ., Chengdu (China). State Key Lab. of Hydraulics and Mountain River Engineering
- Commonwealth Scientific and Industrial Research Organization (CSIRO), Canberra, ACT (Australia). Marine and Atmospheric Research
Abstract Although global variation in actual evapotranspiration has been widely investigated, it remains unclear how its two major components, transpiration and soil evaporation, are driven by climate drivers across global land surface. This paper uses a well‐validated, process‐based model that estimates transpiration and soil evaporation, and for the first time investigates and quantifies how the main global drivers, associated to vegetation process and the water and energy cycle, drive the spatiotemporal variation of the two components. The results show that transpiration and soil evaporation dominate the variance of actual evapotranspiration in wet and dry regions, respectively. Dry southern hemisphere from 13°S to 27°S is highlighted since it contributes to 21% global soil evaporation variance, with only 11% global land area. In wet regions, particularly in the humid tropics, there are strong correlations between transpiration, actual evapotranspiration, and potential evapotranspiration, with precipitation playing a relatively minor role, and available radiative energy is the major contributor to the interannual variability in transpiration and actual evapotranspiration in Amazonia. Conversely in dry regions, there are strong correlations between soil evaporation, actual evapotranspiration, and precipitation. Our findings highlight that ecohydrological links are highly related to climate regimes, and the small region such as Australia has important contribution to interannual variation in global soil evaporation and evapotranspiration, and anthropogenic activities strongly influence the variances in irrigation regions.
- Research Organization:
- Oregon State Univ, Corvallis, Oregon (United States)
- Sponsoring Organization:
- USDOE Office of Science (SC), Biological and Environmental Research (BER); Commonwealth Scientific and Industrial Research Organisation (CSIRO)
- Grant/Contract Number:
- FG02-04ER63917; FG02-04ER63911
- OSTI ID:
- 1474060
- Alternate ID(s):
- OSTI ID: 1402247
- Journal Information:
- Journal of Geophysical Research: Atmospheres, Vol. 122, Issue 13; ISSN 2169-897X
- Publisher:
- American Geophysical UnionCopyright Statement
- Country of Publication:
- United States
- Language:
- English
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