Miralles DG, Martens B, Dolman AJ, Jimenez C, McCabe MF and Wood EF (2016) “Global land evaporation” in State of the Climate in 2015, Bulletin of the American Meteorological Society, 97(8), S34-S35
Abstract
Evaporation of water from soils, snow-covered surfaces, continental water bodies, and vegetation (either via transpiration or interception loss) accounts for approximately two-thirds of continental precipitation. As such, land evaporation represents a key mechanism governing the distribution of hydrological resources, spanning catchment to planetary scales. The ability to monitor land evaporation dynamics is also critical in climatological applications, since evaporation 1) represents the exchange of latent energy from land to atmosphere, directly affecting air
temperature; 2) influences air humidity and cloud formation, playing a strong role in driving atmospheric feedbacks; and 3) is intrinsically connected to photosynthesis, echoing changes in vegetation carbon fixation. A number of recent studies have highlighted the impact of evaporation on climate trends (e.g., Douville et al. 2013; Sheffield et al. 2012) and hydrometeorological extremes (e.g., Teuling et al. 2013; Miralles et al. 2014a).
