Use of pan evaporation to estimate terrestrial evaporation trends: The case of the Tibetan Plateau

Key Points Often decreasing pan evaporation means increasing terrestrial evaporation. Past global dimming was likely too weak to cause wide decreased evaporation. Often a decrease in wind speed, i.e. stilling, leads to increasing evaporation. There is still no general agreement on the relationship b...

Full description

Saved in:
Bibliographic Details
Published in:Water resources research 2013-05, Vol.49 (5), p.3054-3058
Main Author: Brutsaert, Wilfried
Format: Article
Language:English
Subjects:
Climatic conditions
Evaporation
land surface evaporation
Pan evaporation
Tibetan Plateau
Trends
Citations: Items that this one cites
Items that cite this one
Online Access:Get full text
Tags: Add Tag
No Tags, Be the first to tag this record!
Description
Summary:Key Points Often decreasing pan evaporation means increasing terrestrial evaporation. Past global dimming was likely too weak to cause wide decreased evaporation. Often a decrease in wind speed, i.e. stilling, leads to increasing evaporation. There is still no general agreement on the relationship between the evaporation of open water from a small pan and the terrestrial evaporation from the surrounding landscape under drying conditions. A possible way out of this impasse is reviewed and applied to the harsh and extreme climatic conditions of the Tibetan Plateau. It is confirmed herein that during 1966–2000 with a pan evaporation trend of −4.57 mm a−2, the terrestrial evaporation trend was +0.7 mm a−2, in agreement with the experimental findings of Zhang et al. (2007).
ISSN:0043-1397
1944-7973
DOI:10.1002/wrcr.20247