Evolvement of irrigation-induced impacts on near-surface climate under future scenarios

Recent observation-based and modelling studies have highlighted the impacts of irrigation on near-surface climate, and it has been stressed that irrigation can alleviate hot extremes, change precipitation patterns and increase air moisture. However, most of the previous studies only focused on historical periods, while potential climate change, land cover conversions and irrigation method advances may alter both the magnitudes and patterns of irrigation-induced effects, thus the influence of irrigation in the future remains uncertain. To address this question, we will employ version 2 of the Community Earth System Model (CESM2) with an updated irrigation scheme considering different irrigation techniques, to detect the impacts of irrigation on near-surface climate under different future scenarios. To include the influence of climate, land cover and irrigation method, several Representative Concentration Pathways (RCP) and Shared Socio-economic Pathways (SSP) scenarios will be selected, and different scenarios of Irrigation Method Distribution (IMD) evolvement will be designed in line with SSP scenarios for this study. Different combinations of RCP, SSP and IMD scenarios will be used to force the model, and the outputs of these experiments will be analysed and compared. We anticipate that our results will reveal how irrigation-induced impacts on near-surface climate will evolve under different scenarios.