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Title: Irrigation Impact on Water and Energy Cycle During Dry Years Over the United States Using Convection-Permitting WRF and a Dynamical Recycling Model

Journal Article · · Journal of Geophysical Research: Atmospheres
ORCiD logo [1]; ORCiD logo [1]; ORCiD logo [1]; ORCiD logo [1]; ORCiD logo [1]; ORCiD logo [2]; ORCiD logo [3]; ORCiD logo [1]; ORCiD logo [1]; ORCiD logo [1]; ORCiD logo [4]
  1. Pacific Northwest National Lab. (PNNL), Richland, WA (United States)
  2. Univ. of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign, IL (United States)
  3. Nanjing Univ. (China)
  4. Lawrence Livermore National Lab. (LLNL), Livermore, CA (United States)

In this research, an irrigation scheme is implemented in the Weather Research and Forecasting (WRF) model to investigate irrigation impacts over the Continental U.S. (CONUS). Four major irrigated regions and two downwind regions were chosen to understand irrigation impacts over different climate regimes with a focus on irrigation-induced changes on the water and energy cycles. The Dynamic Recycling Model (DRM) is employed to quantify precipitation induced by irrigation and the precipitation recycling ratios over each irrigated region. With the irrigation scheme, WRF improves the simulated precipitation, surface skin temperature, and energy fluxes compared to reference datasets. For the energy cycle, irrigation increases latent heat flux over the irrigated regions along with reduced sensible heat flux. The evaporative cooling effect induced by irrigation leads to a cooler surface and less outgoing longwave radiation at the surface. Irrigation also intensifies the hydrological cycle over the irrigated regions, reflected by the increased precipitation, evapotranspiration, recycling ratio, and moisture export. Downwind regions exhibit increased precipitation and evaporation, decreased moisture flux divergence, and less consistent variations in recycling ratio. The precipitation increases over the irrigated regions can be partly explained by the more unstable low-level conditions, while reduced net moisture export is coincident with the precipitation increases over the downwind regions.

Research Organization:
Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory (LLNL), Livermore, CA (United States); Pacific Northwest National Laboratory (PNNL), Richland, WA (United States); Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory (LBNL), Berkeley, CA (United States). National Energy Research Scientific Computing Center (NERSC)
Sponsoring Organization:
USDOE National Nuclear Security Administration (NNSA); National Science Foundation (NSF); USDOE Office of Science (SC)
Grant/Contract Number:
AC52-07NA27344; KP1701000/57131; AGS1454089; AC05-76RL01830; AC02-05CH11231
OSTI ID:
1580681
Alternate ID(s):
OSTI ID: 1574084; OSTI ID: 1605361
Report Number(s):
LLNL-JRNL-793010; PNNL-SA-141462; 991853; TRN: US2100719
Journal Information:
Journal of Geophysical Research: Atmospheres, Vol. 124, Issue 21; ISSN 2169-897X
Publisher:
American Geophysical UnionCopyright Statement
Country of Publication:
United States
Language:
English
Citation Metrics:
Cited by: 34 works
Citation information provided by
Web of Science

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