Enhanced soil moisture drying in transitional regions under a warming climate

Cheng, Shanjun; Huang, Jianping

doi:10.1002/2015jd024559

Cited by 74 publications

(59 citation statements)

References 63 publications

(84 reference statements)

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“…The predictands also show that the precipitation change mainly affects the variations of SM (i.e., decreased precipitation caused SM drying and increasing precipitation caused SM wetting), while the effect of SAT on the long‐term drying degree in SM is more apparent. The effects of precipitation and temperature on SM changes are consistent with that in Cheng and Huang (), but our results further suggest that the effect of SAT warming on SM drying largely depends on the climatic regions due to the differences of evapotranspiration regimes in different climatic regions.…”

Section: Discussionsupporting

confidence: 91%

“…Overall, the SM anomalies over Eurasia in the warm season showed an evidently decreasing trend with a rate of 0.008 kg/m 2 /year during the past 63 years (Figure S5). It should also be noted that the regions detected with wetting trends at the annual scale in previous studies (e.g., Cheng & Huang, ), such as Arabian Peninsula, India Peninsula, and northwestern China, exhibited drying trends in the warm season (Figure ).…”

Section: Resultsmentioning

confidence: 61%

“…The time‐varying trend evaluated by the EEMD method shows that the sporadic drying areas in the 1960s expanded to sizable regions comparable to the current sizes till 1990, while Cheng and Huang () indicated that the noticeable drying first took place in the humid transitional regions in the 1980s and extended to the dry transitional regions. The evolution of zonally averaged SM drying had a three‐band structure that was in line with that in PRCP, while the accelerating SM drying in most of the latitudes in the recent 10 years was similar to the pattern of changes in zonally averaged SAT.…”

Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 99%

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Intensification and Expansion of Soil Moisture Drying in Warm Season Over Eurasia Under Global Warming

Zhang

et al. 2019

JGR Atmospheres

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Soil moisture (SM) is a key hydrological component regulating the net ecosystem energy exchange at the land‐atmosphere boundary layer over the continents via heat fluxes and relevant feedback on precipitation. Due to its ecological and meteor‐hydrological implications, SM change is of great significance in Eurasia that has the highest population density and fragile ecological environment. Using monthly data from the Global Land Data Assimilation System, this study investigated SM changes over Eurasia during the warm season (May–September). It was found that recent 63 years witnessed widespread decreasing SM across Eurasia during the warm season. Regions with a drying SM tendency kept expanding till the 1990s. Specifically, the largest decreasing magnitude of SM with the aridity index ranging 0.5–0.6 and 1.0–1.1 was found along the semi‐arid and dry‐humid transition regions, respectively. In addition, more significant drying SM was observed in Sahel, northern Asia, northeastern Asia, and western Europe. Weakening West African monsoon (WAM)/East Asia summer monsoon did not benefit the propagation of water vapor flux to the Sahel regions/northeastern and northern Asia, and hence decreased SM in these regions. Besides, results by the maximum covariance analysis highlighted the roles of warming climate in SM variations over Eurasia during the warm season. Global climate models also indicate decreased SM due to global warming and projects continuously decreasing SM in the warm season over the 21st century under Representative Concentration Pathway (RCP)2.6, RCP4.5, RCP6.0, and RCP8.5 scenarios. Decreasing SM across the Eurasia and related ecological and environmental implications should cause international concern.

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Section: Discussionsupporting

confidence: 91%

Section: Resultsmentioning

confidence: 61%

Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 99%

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Intensification and Expansion of Soil Moisture Drying in Warm Season Over Eurasia Under Global Warming

Zhang

et al. 2019

JGR Atmospheres

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“…Based on satellite observations and model simulations, widespread soil moisture (SM) drying in the root zone layer (i.e., at depths of 0–100 cm) has been witnessed globally in past decades (e.g., Cheng et al, ; Cheng & Huang, ; Chen et al, ; Dai, ). Global‐scale SM drying has also been corroborated by meteorological drought indices, such as the Palmer Drought Severity Index (Dai et al, ), Standardized Precipitation Index (Hirschi et al, ; Wang et al, ; Zhang et al, ), and Aridity Index (Huang et al, ).…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Attribution of Global Soil Moisture Drying to Human Activities: A Quantitative Viewpoint

Zhang

et al. 2019

Geophysical Research Letters

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Anthropogenic impacts on widespread global soil moisture (SM) drying in the root zone layer during 1948–2005 were evaluated based on the Global Land Data Assimilation System version 2 (GLDAS‐2) and global climate models from the Coupled Model Intercomparison Project Phase 5 using trend analysis and optimal fingerprint methods. Both methods show agreement that natural forcing alone cannot drive significant SM drying. There is a high probability (≥90%) that the anthropogenic climate change signal is detectable in global SM drying. Specifically, anthropogenic greenhouse gas forcing can lead to global SM drying by 2.1 × 10−3 m3/m3, which is comparable to the drying trend seen in Global Land Data Assimilation System version 2 (2.4 × 10−3 m3/m3) over the past 58 years. Global SM drying is expected to continue in the future, given continuous greenhouse gas emissions.

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“…Although it is relatively easy to observe the SM dynamics at an individual site, it is challenging to scale this site up to the regional scale because of a lack of understanding of the variability of SM on large spatial scales (Su, Ryu, Young, Western, & Wagner, ). Because of the scarcity of SM in situ observations, many studies have attempted to use models (Dirmeyer, Guo, & Gao, ; Robock et al, ), satellite remote sensing (Njoku, Jackson, Lakshmi, Chan, & Nghiem, ; Owe, de Jeu, & Holmes, ; Qiu, Gao, Wang, & Su, ;Wagner et al, ; Wen, Su, & Ma, ), and land data assimilation (Chen et al, ; Cheng & Huang, ; Dorigo et al, ;Owe et al, ;Yang, Koike, Kaihotsu, & Qin, ) to obtain high‐resolution products instead of SM in situ observations.…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Assessment of reanalysis soil moisture products in the permafrost regions of the central of the Qinghai–Tibet Plateau

Qin

et al. 2017

Hydrological Processes

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The long‐term and large‐scale soil moisture (SM) record is important for understanding land atmosphere interactions and their impacts on the weather, climate, and regional ecosystem. SM products are one of the parameters used in some Earth system models, but these records require evaluation before use. The water resources on the Qinghai–Tibet Plateau (QTP) are important to the water security of billions of people in Asia. Therefore, it is necessary to know the SM conditions on the QTP. In this study, the evaluation metrics of multilayer (0–10, 10–40, and 40–100 cm) SM in different reanalysis datasets of the European Centre for Medium‐Range Weather Forecasts interim reanalysis (ERA‐Interim [ERA]), National Centers for Environmental Prediction Climate Forecast System and the Climate Forecast System version 2 (CFSv2), and China Meteorological Administration Land Data Assimilation System (CLDAS) are compared with in situ observations at 5 observation sites, which represent alpine meadow, alpine swamp meadow, alpine grassy meadow, alpine desert steppe, and alpine steppe environments during the thawing season from January 1, 2011, to December 31, 2013, on the QTP. The ERA SM remains constant at approximately 0.2 m3⋅m−3 at all observation sites during the entire thawing season. The CLDAS and CFSv2 SM products show similar patterns with those of the in situ SM observations during the thawing season. The CLDAS SM product performs better than the CFSv2 and ERA for all vegetation types except the alpine swamp meadow. The results indicate that the soil texture and land cover types play a more important role than the precipitation to increase the biases of the CLDAS SM product on the QTP.

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Enhanced soil moisture drying in transitional regions under a warming climate

Cited by 74 publications

References 63 publications

Intensification and Expansion of Soil Moisture Drying in Warm Season Over Eurasia Under Global Warming

Intensification and Expansion of Soil Moisture Drying in Warm Season Over Eurasia Under Global Warming

Attribution of Global Soil Moisture Drying to Human Activities: A Quantitative Viewpoint

Assessment of reanalysis soil moisture products in the permafrost regions of the central of the Qinghai–Tibet Plateau

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