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- Title
Investigating the Relationship between the Evaporative Stress Index and Land Surface Conditions in the Contiguous United States.
- Authors
YAFANG ZHONG; OTKIN, JASON A.; ANDERSON, MARTHA C.; HAIN, CHRISTOPHER
- Abstract
Despite the key importance of soil moisture-evapotranspiration (ET) coupling in the climate system, limited availability of soil moisture and ET observations poses a major impediment for investigation of this coupling regarding spatiotemporal characteristics and potential modifications under climate change. To better understand and quantify soil moisture-ET coupling and relevant processes, this study takes advantage of in situ soil moisture observations from the U.S. Climate Reference Network (USCRN) for the time period of 2010-17 and a satellite-derived version of the evapotranspiration stress index (ESI), which represents anomalies in a normalized ratio of actual to reference ET. The analyses reveal strong seasonality and regional characteristics of the ESI-land surface interactions across the United States, with the strongest control of soil moisture on the ESI found in the southern Great Plains during spring, and in the north-central United States, the northern Great Plains, and the Pacific Northwest during summer. In drier climate regions such as the northern Great Plains and north-central United States, soil moisture control on the ESI is confined to surface soil layers, with subsurface soil moisture passively responding to changes in the ESI. The soil moisture-ESI interaction is more uniform between surface and subsurface soils in wetter regions with higher vegetation cover. These results provide a benchmark for simulation of soil moisture-ET coupling and are useful for projection of associated climate processes in the future.
- Subjects
GREAT Plains; UNITED States; SURFACE interactions; CLIMATE change; SOIL wetting; GROUND vegetation cover; SOIL moisture; TIME measurements
- Publication
Journal of Hydrometeorology, 2020, Vol 21, Issue 7, p1469
- ISSN
1525-755X
- Publication type
Article
- DOI
10.1175/JHM-D-19-0205.1