PICO: Wed, 30 Apr | PICO spot 4
Located in the Congo River basin, the Cuvette Centrale is a densely forested peatland containing billions of tons of carbon. Past work has shown that this peatland is susceptible to large-scale drying trends, which could lead to substantial carbon release to the atmosphere. Understanding the sources of atmospheric water that sustain the Cuvette Centrale, as well as changes to these sources, is essential for characterizing current and future vulnerability. In this presentation, I will share recent work that examines the sources of moisture for the Cuvette Centrale over the first two decades of the 21st century. The results indicate that a substantial fraction of mean annual precipitation falling in the Cuvette Centrale arises as both local evaporation and evaporation from elsewhere in the Congo Basin. An analysis of annual anomalies reveals a multi-decadal drying trend occurring in the Cuvette Centrale, which may be associated with changes occurring throughout key evaporation source areas. Likewise, important links are shown between key ecohydrologic dynamics and moisture recycling to the Cuvette Centrale, such as changes in upwind evaporative stress. This work provides an approach for examining and interpreting changing hydroclimatic vulnerability of critical, global carbon stocks, such as in tropical peatlands. Furthermore, this work underlines the importance of monitoring land-surface changes that could affect moisture recycling to the Cuvette Centrale, such as expanding deforestation across the Congo Basin.
How to cite: Keys, P.: Moisture recycling and vulnerability of Congo's peatlands, EGU General Assembly 2025, Vienna, Austria, 27 Apr–2 May 2025, EGU25-7817, https://doi.org/10.5194/egusphere-egu25-7817, 2025.
The Amazon rainforest, a global biodiversity hotspot and home to over 40 million people—2.2 million of whom are Indigenous—plays a critical role in the global regulation of water and carbon cycles. However, its unique biocultural diversity is increasingly threatened by climate and land-use changes, which could shift vegetation in multi-stable forest areas to savannah- or grassland-like states. Satellite-based observations, Earth system models, and rainfall exclusion experiments provide evidence of the rainforest's critical dependency on precipitation and seasonality. Additionally, complex systems approaches suggest that forests in bistable areas are maintained by cascading moisture recycling, a process that is significantly reduced by regional deforestation.
This research employs the dynamic global vegetation model LPJmL (version 5.9), incorporating variable tree rooting strategies and coupled with moisture network data derived from the Lagrangian moisture transport model UTrack. The observation-based monthly moisture networks for the period 2003–2014 proportionally redistribute evapotranspiration from LPJmL over the Amazon basin as precipitation, providing a partially dynamic representation of the moisture-vegetation feedback. Future scenarios, including increased drought frequencies (based on the major droughts of 2005 and 2010 as analogs for future extremes)and two deforestation projections (based on the Governance and Business as Usual scenarios from Soares-Filho et al. (2006)), are implemented to analyse rainfall changes and the forest's local and telecoupled moisture response in LPJmL. We also provide a first estimate of the collective contribution of Indigenous Peoples’ Lands to terrestrial precipitation in the Amazon, by explicitly accounting for atmospheric water flows originating from Indigenous territories as in the data provided by Garnett et al. (2018).
These findings add to our understanding of forest-water interactions from a moisture recycling perspective, assessing the impacts of drought and deforestation while highlighting the role of Indigenous land management. Advances in modelling could support future assessments of forest resilience and tipping risks, providing critical inputs for forest management and underscoring the urgency of effective climate mitigation.
How to cite: Vanelli, C., Andersen, L. S., Fahrländer, S. F., Staal, A., von Bloh, W., Wunderling, N., and Sakschewski, B.: Simulating moisture-vegetation feedbacks in the Amazon under drought and deforestation scenarios, EGU General Assembly 2025, Vienna, Austria, 27 Apr–2 May 2025, EGU25-20298, https://doi.org/10.5194/egusphere-egu25-20298, 2025.
Soil moisture variability and drought severity in South America are increasingly pressing challenges, driven by global climate change and extensive land use change. In particular, the biophysical effects of vegetation not only influence local water availability, but also have non-local impacts through atmospheric moisture transport. Understanding how upwind vegetation dynamics affect downwind soil moisture anomalies (SMA) is critical to addressing these challenges. In this study, we investigate the role of upwind vegetation in modulating SMA from 2001 to 2018 using a deep learning framework. We identified a pronounced sensitivity of downwind SMA to Amazonian vegetation, with water transport dominating during more than half of the drought events. Hotspots in the eastern Amazon were found where increased vegetation could significantly enhance atmospheric moisture supply to downwind regions, thereby buffering soil moisture variability in Brazilian agricultural zones. Overall, our results highlight the critical role of atmospheric moisture transport in shaping regional hydrology and emphasize the interconnectedness of land use change and hydrological processes. By integrating vegetation dynamics and non-local moisture transport into hydrological and land management strategies, this research provides actionable insights for improving drought resilience and managing the hydrological impacts of vegetation in a changing climate.
How to cite: Jiang, S., Huang, F., and Shangguan, W.: Non-local impacts of upwind vegetation on soil moisture across South America, EGU General Assembly 2025, Vienna, Austria, 27 Apr–2 May 2025, EGU25-6217, https://doi.org/10.5194/egusphere-egu25-6217, 2025.
The Amazon rainforest faces mounting pressure from deforestation, resource extraction, and infrastructure development, with approximately 20% of its forest cover lost in recent decades. These changes, alongside rising temperatures and shifting precipitation patterns, are severely impacting the forest’s resilience Deforestation not only reduces local evapotranspiration and alters surface energy balance—leading to declines in precipitation and increases in temperature—but also disrupts downstream rainfall through changes in water vapor transport, affecting regions dependent on Amazonian moisture.
While Earth System Models (ESMs) offer critical insights into these impacts, their high computational demands limit the range of scenarios they can assess. To overcome this, ESM emulators such as the IMOGEN system provide efficient, pattern-scaled projections. However, existing emulators often fail to incorporate essential local climate feedbacks, which are critical for understanding the Amazon’s resilience to climate change and land-use shifts.
This study enhances the IMOGEN/PRIME emulator to account for localized rainfall changes driven by upstream land-use alterations and deforestation. Using the WAM-2layers model with ERA5 data, we generate sensitivity matrices to quantify how evapotranspiration (ET) from different Amazon regions contributes to precipitation elsewhere. These are combined with ET anomalies simulated by the JULES land-surface model under various land-use scenarios. Scenarios are derived from the LuccME framework (Aguiar et al., 2016) and include: Sustainability, reflecting socio-economic and environmental advancements; Fragmentation, representing resource depletion and inequity.; Middle of the Road, a mix of both; Extreme cases, such as total South American deforestation, are also assessed.
By combining ET anomalies with water vapor transport sensitivities, precipitation change patterns are spatially mapped for each scenario and incorporated into IMOGEN. This integration allows for simulations of cascading effects from land-use changes on regional precipitation and climate.
The enhanced emulator offers a powerful framework to assess deforestation-driven climate impacts, including their effects on forest resilience and biogeochemical cycles. This approach provides a comprehensive evaluation of Amazon forest dieback risks under diverse CMIP6-aligned scenarios, delivering critical insights for conservation and sustainable land management strategies.
How to cite: Cattelan, L. G., Hirota, M., Baker, J., Sitch, S., Huntingford, C., Goncalves De Souza, J., and Gloor, E.: Simulating Precipitation Reductions from Land-Use Changes in South America: A Novel Emulator Approach, EGU General Assembly 2025, Vienna, Austria, 27 Apr–2 May 2025, EGU25-6823, https://doi.org/10.5194/egusphere-egu25-6823, 2025.
Northwest China is a typical arid and semi-arid region and an important climate-sensitive and vulnerable area. In recent decades, this region has experienced a notable trend toward humidification. Understanding the characteristics and trends of precipitation and the atmospheric water vapor cycle in this area is essential for predicting the future evolution of this phenomenon. Using observational and reanalysis data, this study classified precipitation in Northwest China from 1961 to 2020 into 20 levels, ranging from light to heavy events. The analysis shows that the overall increase in precipitation is largely driven by extreme precipitation events exceeding the 90th percentile, with the rising frequency of heavy precipitation accounting for most of the observed changes. Precipitation intensity across different levels is positively correlated with both external moisture transport and regional moisture contributions. Heavy precipitation events are closely linked to stronger moisture inflows and more active regional recycling processes. Enhanced precipitation efficiency and shorter moisture residence times further facilitate the occurrence of intense precipitation in the region. The increasing trend in heavy precipitation is primarily associated with greater moisture contributions from cross-equatorial flows over the Indian Ocean and increased local evaporation. These factors enhance land-atmosphere interactions and precipitation efficiency, thereby driving the frequency and intensity of extreme precipitation events.
How to cite: Hua, L.: Extreme precipitation driven humidification in Northwest China: Changes in precipitation characteristics and atmospheric water vapor transport in Northwest China, 1961-2020, EGU General Assembly 2025, Vienna, Austria, 27 Apr–2 May 2025, EGU25-5660, https://doi.org/10.5194/egusphere-egu25-5660, 2025.
Land surface characteristics significantly influence regional weather patterns, with the surface heat budget being governed by factors such as surface albedo, emissivity, heat fluxes, and evaporation. In this study, we investigate the impact of regreening on regional temperature regimes and livability factors in the semi-arid NEOM region in northern Saudi Arabia. We conduct numerical experiments using a high-resolution (1.5x1.5 km grid spacing) Weather Research and Forecast (WRF) regional model to study the effect of converting the surface type from desert to savanna trees with 45% density across a 3.2E5-hectare area. We evaluate the effects of regreening using simulations over three summer months.
Our results indicate that regreening reduces surface temperature by approximately 0.6°C, primarily due to enhanced evapotranspiration. However, irrigation and increased moisture fluxes contribute to a rise in wet-bulb temperature, an important metric for heat stress. Specifically, the wet-bulb temperature increased by 0.7°C, potentially exacerbating heat stress in the region. Notably, maintaining this regreened area requires about 1.2 billion tons of water for irrigation during the summer period.
In semi-arid regions used in this study, where natural water sources are absent, irrigation relies on desalinated water. Although desalination ensures a reliable water supply, it requires substantial energy and generates emissions that contribute to atmospheric warming and negatively impact regional air quality.
These findings highlight the trade-offs associated with regreening in semi-arid regions, where reductions in surface temperature due to evapotranspiration may be offset by increased heat stress, energy demands, and environmental costs of desalination. This emphasizes the need for integrated and sustainable approaches to such interventions.
How to cite: Mostamandi, M. S., Osipov, S., Stenchikov, G., and Wada, Y.: Balancing Benefits and Challenges of Regreening in Semi-Arid Climates., EGU General Assembly 2025, Vienna, Austria, 27 Apr–2 May 2025, EGU25-1331, https://doi.org/10.5194/egusphere-egu25-1331, 2025.
Irrigation plays a vital role in addressing the growing food demand of an increasing global population. About 70% of worldwide freshwater withdrawals are used for irrigation, and of the ca. 16 million km2 of global cropland, about 20% are irrigated. Due to the massive redistribution of water across the land surface and pumping of groundwater resources, irrigation represents one of the most critical and direct human interventions on the coupled water and energy cycles. As irrigated farmland continues to expand, understanding the climate impact of extensive irrigation becomes increasingly important. Yet, the effect on rainfall patterns near irrigated areas remains less clear. Here, we detect a systematic impact of extensive irrigation at the global scale on the location and downwind rainfall amount of afternoon rain. Using two global, high-resolution, sub-daily precipitation datasets, we show that afternoon rain events occur more often 10 km to 50 km downwind and less often upwind of extensively irrigated land. However, we also find that the total amount of heavy afternoon rain downwind of irrigated areas is lower than upwind. Our results provide large-scale observational evidence of the local precipitation dynamics and land-atmosphere interactions surrounding irrigated areas to provide new insights for regional water management and help constrain the representation of these processes in next-generation climate and weather forecasting models.
How to cite: Greve, P., Schmitt, A. U., Miralles, D. G., McDermid, S., Findell, K. L., Garcia-Garcia, A., and Peng, J.: Observational Evidence of Increased Afternoon Rainfall Downwind of Irrigated Areas, EGU General Assembly 2025, Vienna, Austria, 27 Apr–2 May 2025, EGU25-15031, https://doi.org/10.5194/egusphere-egu25-15031, 2025.
India and China host ~45% of the world’s irrigated area, with irrigation accounting for 65–75% of the total water usage in these countries. The impact of intense irrigation on regional precipitation and even monsoonal dynamics is well acknowledged. However, the degree to which recycled irrigation water helps sustain rainfed crops, acting as an indirect source of water supply, remains unknown. This is especially important in India and China, where irrigated crops are grown in close proximity to rainfed ones. In this study, we quantify (a) the contribution of atmospherically recycled irrigation water to rainfall over rainfed regions, and (b) the importance of this contribution for satisfying the water demand of rainfed crops.
The methodology involves 20 years of global Lagrangian atmospheric model (FLEXPART) simulations tracking 10 million air parcels. These simulations were constrained by ERA5 reanalysis data and satellite-based terrestrial evaporation data from GLEAM4. Evaporation from irrigated and rainfed crops was computed using the FAO-Penman method. Air parcels that contribute to rainfall over rainfed crops were tracked backward in time for a period of 15 days. Subsequently, the contribution of evaporation from irrigated crops to rainfall over rainfed crop regions was computed.
Preliminary results show that, on average, ~15% of the rainfall over rainfed crops can be attributed to irrigation evaporation in upwind regions. The irrigation contribution to rainfall reaches as high as 50% in parts of the intensively irrigated Indo-Gangetic plain. Stark differences are observed between India and China, with irrigation contribution to rainfall over rainfed regions being substantially higher in India. Removal of this irrigation contribution would result in an average increase in evaporative stress of ~10%, with a maximum increase of 25%. With irrigation projected to expand to sustain crop production in a changing climate, it is likely to play an indirect yet significant role in supporting rainfed crops as well. Our results highlight the relevance of considering recycled irrigation as an essential source of water supply for rainfed crops.
How to cite: Koppa, A., Bassani, F., Deman, V., Insua-Costa, D., Keune, J., Miralles, D., and Bonetti, S.: Irrigation indirectly sustains rainfed crops in India and China through atmospheric recycling, EGU General Assembly 2025, Vienna, Austria, 27 Apr–2 May 2025, EGU25-4645, https://doi.org/10.5194/egusphere-egu25-4645, 2025.
Climate impacts of the South-to-North water diversion project in China on water-receiving areas (WRA) is simulated by the Weather Research and Forecasting (WRF) model. The results show that during the 2015—2022 water diversion period, the WRA experiences increased precipitation and decreased temperature. Annual precipitation increased by 2.8 mm, mainly dominated by non-convective precipitation (1.92 mm), Although the upwind region receives more water, the increase in water vapor flux is more dramatic in the downwind region due to the spring northwest monsoon; The decreased temperature effect is most pronounced in spring (over 0.15 °C), and over 10 mm of evaporation increase in the downwind region. The sensible heat flux decrease is less pronounced than the latent heat flux increase, mainly because of the insulating effect, which prevented evaporative cooling reduction. This study advances our understanding of the mechanisms by which large-scale water diversion affects WRA climates.
How to cite: Deng, H., Wang, Q., Zhu, Y., Gui, Y., Zhao, Y., and Chen, X.: Impacts of South-to-North Water Diversion Project Continuous Water Diversions on Increased Precipitation and Decreased Temperature in Water-Receiving Areas, EGU General Assembly 2025, Vienna, Austria, 27 Apr–2 May 2025, EGU25-2201, https://doi.org/10.5194/egusphere-egu25-2201, 2025.
Evapotranspiration (ET) is a vital component of the hydrological cycle, mediating energy, water, and carbon exchanges on land surfaces and the atmosphere, which are critical for agricultural water availability. Understanding the spatiotemporal variability of ET and its relationship with atmospheric drivers and land use/land cover change (LUCC) is crucial for assessing environmental impacts on regional water cycles and improving water resource management.
This study focuses on the lowlands in eastern Germany. It is a predominantly agricultural region with a continental climate. Despite being one of the driest areas in Germany, 45% of its land is used for agriculture. Using environmental data obtained by MODIS (ET, temperature, solar radiation, and LUCC) and the German Weather Service (relative humidity, precipitation, wind speed, soil moisture, and vapor pressure deficit), ET trends and drivers are analyzed from 2000 to 2020. The objectives are to (i) identify key factors influencing ET and (ii) estimate the effects of climate change and LUCC on ET.
Results reveal a slight increase in annual ET (taking into account the European vegetation period), with spatial trends showing increases of up to 7.17%, particularly in the southern and southeastern regions. Over the same period, Temp and VPD rose by 37% in the western and eastern areas, while RH decreased by more than 55% in areas experiencing higher Temp and VPD levels. Significant LUCC was observed, including a 22.24% decrease in cropland-to-grassland conversion and a 14.75% increase in grassland-to-cropland conversion, leading to a 21% decline and a 10% increase in ET, respectively.
Among climatic factors, VPD, Temp, RH, and SR had the most substantial influence on ET variability, contributing 28.24%, 27.68%, and 26.84%, respectively. Overall, climate change accounted for 97% of ET variation, underscoring its dominant role. Notably, discrepancies between ET and climatic drivers in western, eastern, and southeastern regions align with drought periods documented in this study. Our findings highlight the important role of Temp and RH in agricultural and water resources management, particularly in the context of climate change.
How to cite: Ahmadpour, S., Bayzidi, Y., and Trachte, K.: Evapotranspiration and Feedback Effects with Climate and Land Use Change in the Eastern German Lowlands, EGU General Assembly 2025, Vienna, Austria, 27 Apr–2 May 2025, EGU25-10508, https://doi.org/10.5194/egusphere-egu25-10508, 2025.
Historical changes in land use have shown different effects on climatic and hydrological processes across spatial and temporal scales. Among these, snow accumulation, snowmelt, and evapotranspiration are key processes sensitive to land use changes that can directly influence streamflow production at the catchment scale. The potential future effects of land use changes on streamflow production highlight the importance of assessing the sensitivity of modelling tools commonly used to produce hydrological projections, such as hydrological models (HMs) and regional climate models (RCMs). Therefore, this study aims to assess the individual and combined effects of RCM- and HM-simulated land use changes on the streamflow simulations of five North American catchments. To assess RCM-simulated land use change impacts, three simulations from the Canadian RCM version 5 (CRCM5) were used: a reference simulation (current land uses), a forested scenario (100% forest land use), and a grass scenario (100% grass land use), following the Land-Use and Climate Across Scales (LUCAS) protocol. Two distributed HMs, WASIM and HYDROTEL, were used to evaluate HM-simulated land use change effects on streamflow under the same reference, forest and grass scenarios. Results indicated that RCM-simulated land use changes had a greater impact on streamflow than those simulated by HMs alone. Regarding the differences between hydrological models, HYDROTEL showed higher sensitivity to land use changes in snow processes, while WASIM showed greater sensitivity in modelling evapotranspiration. Further comparisons with a modified version of the GR4J hydrological model provided additional insights into how model structures influence the level of sensitivity to land use, highlighting the importance of each hydrological model internal formulations. Moreover, this study underscores the need for further research into how HMs represent complex land use changes and emphasizes the importance of selecting appropriate tools for specific local hydroclimatic conditions and land use dynamics to improve hydrological modelling and water resources management.
How to cite: Castañeda-Gonzalez, M., Pouryousefi Markhali, S., Poulin, A., Martel, J.-L., Arsenault, R., Brissette, F., Turcotte, B., Asselin, O., and Turcotte, R.: Hydroclimatic simulations sensitivity to land use changes , EGU General Assembly 2025, Vienna, Austria, 27 Apr–2 May 2025, EGU25-12170, https://doi.org/10.5194/egusphere-egu25-12170, 2025.
Climate change and human activities are rapidly altering watershed dynamics, with agricultural management being a key protagonist in modifying water partitioning within watersheds. The Budyko framework relates precipitation partitioning to climatic conditions through fundamental constraints of water and energy availability. However, managed watersheds deviate from the natural Budyko curve due to their modified water balance, particularly through irrigation inputs.
This study develops a process-based extension of the Budyko framework by explicitly incorporating irrigation into the water balance equations. Our approach accounts for both stochastic rainfall and irrigation inputs, considering different management methods, climatic conditions, and crop parameters. This allows us to predict and explain the shifts in water partitioning observed in managed watersheds within the Budyko space.
We validate our theoretical predictions using real-world basins that span diverse climates and management practices - from rainfed to fully irrigated agriculture. The framework successfully captures the transitions between different agricultural strategies through their modified evaporative patterns, showing good agreement with observed data across various irrigation methods and crop types, demonstrating how these interventions have altered hydrological patterns on a global scale.
This framework advances our understanding of agricultural feedbacks on the water cycle through modified evapotranspiration patterns. The ability to characterize these changes using minimal parameters makes it valuable for improving hydrological models and detecting irrigation practices through their distinctive signatures in the Budyko space.
How to cite: Cerasoli, S., Vico, G., and Porporato, A.: Water Use in Agroecosystems: An Extended Budyko Framework, EGU General Assembly 2025, Vienna, Austria, 27 Apr–2 May 2025, EGU25-19822, https://doi.org/10.5194/egusphere-egu25-19822, 2025.
Rainfall intermittency is a defining characteristic of the hydrology in arid and semi-arid regions. These climates experience prolonged droughts interrupted by brief, intense rainfall events, which have substantial effects on landforms, ecosystems, and water resources. Under climate change, intermittent precipitation patterns are expected to become more prevalent across a wider range of climates. Despite this, there is limited research on the link between rainfall intermittency and physical aridity. Furthermore, high-resolution representation of rainfall variability remains a significant source of uncertainty in rainfall modeling and downscaling. Herein, we investigate the relationship between rainfall intermittency, its temporal scaling behavior, and aridity from a climatological standpoint. We hypothesize that intermittency is shaped by fine-scale processes, such as land-atmosphere interactions and local water and energy dynamics, alongside large-scale atmospheric forces. By analyzing extensive hourly and sub-hourly precipitation datasets from the Contiguous United States (NOAA US-HPD) and Australia (Australian Bureau of Meteorology), we uncover a clear functional relationship between intermittency and aridity metrics across diverse water-limited climates. These findings offer a foundation for enhancing precipitation downscaling techniques and understanding future precipitation regimes in regions with limited water availability.
How to cite: Vargas Godoy, M. R., Molini, A., Markonis, Y., and Villarini, G.: On the Link Between Physical Aridity and Rainfall Intermittency, EGU General Assembly 2025, Vienna, Austria, 27 Apr–2 May 2025, EGU25-14837, https://doi.org/10.5194/egusphere-egu25-14837, 2025.
Atmospheric moisture plays a crucial role in connecting global water and energy exchanges within the water cycle. Using a water recycling model, this study examines the spatiotemporal characteristics of precipitation and evaporation recycling ratios (PRR and ERR) across 200 river basins worldwide from 1980 to 2021, with data fused from three reanalysis datasets. The results reveal that regions near the equator exhibit higher PRR values, signifying strong moisture self-sufficiency, whereas arid, high-latitude, and inland regions show lower PRR values, indicating a higher dependence on external water vapor. Temporal trends indicate a decline in PRR and ERR in regions such as North America, South Africa, and Australia, while some areas in Central Asia and Europe have experienced increases. Structural Equation Modeling reveals that land cover, especially the Leaf Area Index (LAI), and wind speed are key drivers of spatial and temporal variability in water recycling ratios. The study classifies river basins into four categories based on their water recycling trends: ‘Enhanced Exchange Basins,’ ‘Beneficial Basins,’ ‘Shrinkage Basins,’ and ‘Reduced Exchange Basins.’ These classifications provide valuable insights into regional water cycles and can inform targeted water resource management strategies, crucial for addressing challenges like water scarcity and ecosystem restoration.
How to cite: Wang, Y., Miao, C., Zhang, Q., Su, J., Gou, J., Duan, Q., and Borthwick, A. G.: Vegetation and Wind Speed Dominate Precipitation-Evaporation Recycling Processes during 1980–2021, EGU General Assembly 2025, Vienna, Austria, 27 Apr–2 May 2025, EGU25-21892, https://doi.org/10.5194/egusphere-egu25-21892, 2025.
Understanding atmospheric moisture sources and their transport pathways is essential for advancing our knowledge of hydrological processes, regional precipitation patterns, and climate variability. In this study, we analyze continental and oceanic moisture sources with a focus on climatological patterns and long-term trends. To revisit our understanding of global moisture sources, we leverage a new global, open-source dataset spanning 45 years (1979–2024), derived from Lagrangian transport modeling with FLEXPART (Bakels et al, 2024). It contains 3-hourly information on the position of the air parcels — which are distributed globally according to density — as well as different associated state variables such as temperature or specific humidity.
The outputs from the Lagrangian model are fed to HAMSTER, a tool for source attribution that is constrained by observational data of both precipitation and evaporation (Keune et al., 2022). Notably, we analyze the moisture sources for each continent separately in addition to the sources for the global land area as a whole, which enables us to: (1) assess intra-continental precipitation and evaporation recycling ratios, (2) investigate the inter-continental transport of moisture, and (3) analyze the role of different ocean basins in providing moisture to specific terrestrial regions. Moreover, the dataset’s longer record and its higher spatial and temporal resolution compared to their predecessors allow for an up-to-date investigation of the change in moisture source contributions over the past four decades. This includes exploring the impact of climate change and land use alterations on the hydrological cycle and how these changes affect the balance between oceanic and terrestrial moisture sources per continent. Overall, this study refines our understanding of atmospheric moisture transport dynamics in a changing climate, highlighting ongoing shifts in our global hydrological cycle.
References
Bakels, L., Tatsii, D., Tipka, A., Thompson, R., Dütsch, M., Blaschek, M., Seibert, P., Baier, K., Bucci, S., Cassiani, M., Eckhardt, S., Groot Zwaaftink, C., Henne, S., Kaufmann, P., Lechner, V., Maurer, C., Mulder, M. D., Pisso, I., Plach, A., Subramanian, R., Vojta, M., and Stohl, A.: FLEXPART version 11: improved accuracy, efficiency, and flexibility, Geosci. Model Dev., 17, 7595–7627, https://doi.org/10.5194/gmd-17-7595-2024, 2024.
Keune, J., Schumacher, D. L., and Miralles, D. G.: A unified framework to estimate the origins of atmospheric moisture and heat using Lagrangian models, Geosci. Model Dev., 15, 1875–1898, https://doi.org/10.5194/gmd-15-1875-2022, 2022.
How to cite: Deman, V. M. H., Insua-Costa, D., and G. Miralles, D.: Revisiting global oceanic and terrestrial moisture sources based on state-of-the-art Lagrangian transport simulations , EGU General Assembly 2025, Vienna, Austria, 27 Apr–2 May 2025, EGU25-18802, https://doi.org/10.5194/egusphere-egu25-18802, 2025.
