Looking Up or Looking Down? Hydrologic and Atmospheric Perspectives on Precipitation and Evaporation Variability

Jun Yin; Amilcare Porporato

doi:10.1029/2019GL085466

Looking Up or Looking Down? Hydrologic and Atmospheric Perspectives on Precipitation and Evaporation Variability

Jun Yin, Amilcare Porporato

Research output: Contribution to journal › Comment/debate › peer-review

1 Scopus citations

Abstract

Precipitation and evapotranspiration, respectively, an input and an output for hydrologists and ocean scientists, but the opposite for meteorologists, quantify the intensity of vertical water exchange between land, ocean, and the atmosphere. The interesting paper by Dagan et al. (2019, https://doi.org/10.1029/2019GL084173) analyzed important constraints between such fluxes as a function of spatial scales. This commentary aims to provide a complementary, hydrologic point of view, emphasizing how their intermittency at different spatial and temporal scales is essentially related to the contrasting water storage capacities of the atmosphere and the Earth's surface. Alterations of such storage due to global warming and land cover change are a challenge for the geophysical community and beyond.

Original language	English (US)
Pages (from-to)	11968-11971
Number of pages	4
Journal	Geophysical Research Letters
Volume	46
Issue number	21
DOIs	https://doi.org/10.1029/2019GL085466
State	Published - Nov 16 2019

All Science Journal Classification (ASJC) codes

Geophysics
General Earth and Planetary Sciences

Keywords

climate change
extreme events
fractal analysis
land use land cover change
land-atmosphere interaction
self-similarity

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10.1029/2019GL085466

Cite this

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abstract = "Precipitation and evapotranspiration, respectively, an input and an output for hydrologists and ocean scientists, but the opposite for meteorologists, quantify the intensity of vertical water exchange between land, ocean, and the atmosphere. The interesting paper by Dagan et al. (2019, https://doi.org/10.1029/2019GL084173) analyzed important constraints between such fluxes as a function of spatial scales. This commentary aims to provide a complementary, hydrologic point of view, emphasizing how their intermittency at different spatial and temporal scales is essentially related to the contrasting water storage capacities of the atmosphere and the Earth's surface. Alterations of such storage due to global warming and land cover change are a challenge for the geophysical community and beyond.",

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T1 - Looking Up or Looking Down? Hydrologic and Atmospheric Perspectives on Precipitation and Evaporation Variability

AU - Yin, Jun

AU - Porporato, Amilcare

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Y1 - 2019/11/16

N2 - Precipitation and evapotranspiration, respectively, an input and an output for hydrologists and ocean scientists, but the opposite for meteorologists, quantify the intensity of vertical water exchange between land, ocean, and the atmosphere. The interesting paper by Dagan et al. (2019, https://doi.org/10.1029/2019GL084173) analyzed important constraints between such fluxes as a function of spatial scales. This commentary aims to provide a complementary, hydrologic point of view, emphasizing how their intermittency at different spatial and temporal scales is essentially related to the contrasting water storage capacities of the atmosphere and the Earth's surface. Alterations of such storage due to global warming and land cover change are a challenge for the geophysical community and beyond.

AB - Precipitation and evapotranspiration, respectively, an input and an output for hydrologists and ocean scientists, but the opposite for meteorologists, quantify the intensity of vertical water exchange between land, ocean, and the atmosphere. The interesting paper by Dagan et al. (2019, https://doi.org/10.1029/2019GL084173) analyzed important constraints between such fluxes as a function of spatial scales. This commentary aims to provide a complementary, hydrologic point of view, emphasizing how their intermittency at different spatial and temporal scales is essentially related to the contrasting water storage capacities of the atmosphere and the Earth's surface. Alterations of such storage due to global warming and land cover change are a challenge for the geophysical community and beyond.

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KW - extreme events

KW - fractal analysis

KW - land use land cover change

KW - land-atmosphere interaction

KW - self-similarity

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DO - 10.1029/2019GL085466

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Looking Up or Looking Down? Hydrologic and Atmospheric Perspectives on Precipitation and Evaporation Variability

Abstract

All Science Journal Classification (ASJC) codes

Keywords

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