Year: 2024
Type: article
Abstract: Evaporation rates and land surface temperatures can be modified by planned water availability as well as land use and land cover changes. In general, a higher evaporation rate via its associated latent heat flux yields a cooler surface. Here we demonstrate that increasing energy at the land surface necessitates more intense latent heat fluxes for the same unit degree of surface cooling. When the wet-surface temperature is around 25 °C, a unit drop in land surface temperature requires about twice as much water to evaporate than when it is only 10 °C. As a consequence, today an estimated 5 ± 3% of extra water may be needed to evaporate globally for the same cooling effect as before the industrial era when near surface air temperature over land was about 1.5 °C cooler on average. This increase is a magnitude larger than what the thermal properties of water explain. Increasing energy at the land surface impacts global evaporation rates and surface temperatures, necessitating 5 ± 3% extra water to evaporate at the present-day for the same cooling effect, according to analysis of the latent heat flux required for surface temperature reduction through an adiabatic process.
Language: English
Subfield: Global and Planetary Change
Field: Environmental Science
Domain: Physical Sciences
SDG: Climate action
Open Access status: gold
Estimated APC paid: $3,290
OpenAlex ID: W4403630682