Potential impacts of wintertime soil moisture anomalies from agricultural irrigation at low latitudes on regional and global climates

Anthropogenic water management can change surface energy budgets and the water cycle. In this study, we focused on impacts of Asian low‐latitude irrigation on regional and global climates during boreal wintertime. A state‐of‐the‐art Earth system model is used to simulate the land‐air interaction pro...

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Bibliographic Details
Published in:Geophysical research letters 2015-10, Vol.42 (20), p.8605-8614
Main Authors: Wey, Hao-Wei, Lo, Min-Hui, Lee, Shih-Yu, Yu, Jin-Yi, Hsu, Huang-Hsiung
Format: Article
Language:English
Subjects:
Agricultural management
Aleutian low
Anomalies
Anthropogenic factors
Asian
Atmospheric circulation
Budgeting
Budgets
Circulation
Climate
Climate change
Computer simulation
Convergence
Earth
Energy
Energy budget
Energy management
Feedback
Global climate
Human influences
Hydrologic cycle
Hydrological cycle
Irrigation
land-air interaction
Latitude
Marine
Meteorology
Moisture
Monsoon circulation
Monsoons
Soil
Soil moisture
Soil temperature
State of the art
Surface energy
Surface properties
Surface temperature
teleconnection
Teleconnections
Temperature effects
Tropical climate
Water management
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Summary:Anthropogenic water management can change surface energy budgets and the water cycle. In this study, we focused on impacts of Asian low‐latitude irrigation on regional and global climates during boreal wintertime. A state‐of‐the‐art Earth system model is used to simulate the land‐air interaction processes affected by irrigation and the consequent responses in atmospheric circulation. Perturbed experiments show that wet soil moisture anomalies at low latitudes can reduce the surface temperature on a continental scale through atmospheric feedback. The intensity of prevailing monsoon circulation becomes stronger because of larger land‐sea thermal contrast. Furthermore, anomalous upper level convergence over South Asia and midlatitude climatic changes indicate tropical‐extratropical teleconnections. The wintertime Aleutian low is deepened and an anomalous warm surface temperature is found in North America. Previous studies have noted this warming but left it unexplained, and we provide plausible mechanisms for these remote impacts coming from the irrigation over Asian low‐latitude regions. Key Points Model simulation without considering irrigation underestimates ET over Indo‐Gangetic Plain Irrigation at Asian low latitudes has the potential to induce PNA teleconnection Irrigation results in interhemispheric thermal gradient, thereby modifying Pacific subtropical jet
ISSN:0094-8276
1944-8007
DOI:10.1002/2015GL065883