@article{b394addacef84183bcb3d0a11e61ab90,
title = "Intensification and Expansion of Soil Moisture Drying in Warm Season Over Eurasia Under Global Warming",
abstract = "Soil moisture (SM) is a key hydrological component regulating the net ecosystem energy exchange at the land-atmosphere boundary layer over the continents via heat fluxes and relevant feedback on precipitation. Due to its ecological and meteor-hydrological implications, SM change is of great significance in Eurasia that has the highest population density and fragile ecological environment. Using monthly data from the Global Land Data Assimilation System, this study investigated SM changes over Eurasia during the warm season (May–September). It was found that recent 63 years witnessed widespread decreasing SM across Eurasia during the warm season. Regions with a drying SM tendency kept expanding till the 1990s. Specifically, the largest decreasing magnitude of SM with the aridity index ranging 0.5–0.6 and 1.0–1.1 was found along the semi-arid and dry-humid transition regions, respectively. In addition, more significant drying SM was observed in Sahel, northern Asia, northeastern Asia, and western Europe. Weakening West African monsoon (WAM)/East Asia summer monsoon did not benefit the propagation of water vapor flux to the Sahel regions/northeastern and northern Asia, and hence decreased SM in these regions. Besides, results by the maximum covariance analysis highlighted the roles of warming climate in SM variations over Eurasia during the warm season. Global climate models also indicate decreased SM due to global warming and projects continuously decreasing SM in the warm season over the 21st century under Representative Concentration Pathway (RCP)2.6, RCP4.5, RCP6.0, and RCP8.5 scenarios. Decreasing SM across the Eurasia and related ecological and environmental implications should cause international concern.",
keywords = "drying trend, Eurasia, precipitation, soil moisture, temperature, warm season",
author = "Xihui Gu and Qiang Zhang and Jianfeng Li and Singh, {Vijay P.} and Jianyu Liu and Peng Sun and Chunyang He and Jianjun Wu",
note = "Funding Information: This work is financially supported by the National Key Research and Development Program of China (grant 2018YFA0605603), the Strategic Priority Research Program Grant of the Chinese Academy of Sciences (grant XDA19070402), the National Natural Science Foundation of China (grant 41771536), the Fund for Creative Research Groups of National Natural Science Foundation of China (grant 41621061), the National Science Foundation for Distinguished Young Scholars of China (grant 51425903), the Fundamental Research Funds for the Central Universities, China University of Geosciences (Wuhan) (grants CUG180614 and CUGCJ1702), the grant from the Research Grants Council of the Hong Kong Special Administrative Region, China (Project HKBU22301916), the Faculty Research Grant from Hong Kong Baptist University (Project FRG2/15-16/043), and the funding from State Key Laboratory of Loess and Quaternary Geology, Institute of Earth Environment, CAS (grant SKLLQG1849). Many thanks are given to NASA/GSFC and NOAA/NCEP for producing and making available the GLDAS and reanalysis data sets, and given to CRU for developing and making available the PRCP, SAT, and PET data sets. We acknowledge the World Climate Research Programme's Working Group on Coupled Modeling, which is responsible for CMIP5. The monthly SM data sets from GLDAS are obtained at https://disc.sci.gsfc.nasa.gov/datasets?keywords=GLDAS and from CMIP5 at https://esgf-node.llnl.gov/search/cmip5/. Reanalysis and SST data sets are obtained at https://www.esrl.noaa.gov/psd/data/gridded/data.ncep.reanalysis.html. CRU data sets are obtained at https://crudata.uea.ac.uk/cru/data/hrg/. We also thank two famous reviewers and the Editor Allison Steiner, whose comments and suggestions largely improve the quality of our paper. Funding Information: This work is financially supported by the National Key Research and Development Program of China (grant 2018YFA0605603), the Strategic Priority Research Program Grant of the Chinese Academy of Sciences (grant XDA19070402), the National Natural Science Foundation of China (grant 41771536), the Fund for Creative Research Groups of National Natural Science Foundation of China (grant 41621061), the National Science Foundation for Distinguished Young Scholars of China (grant 51425903), the Fundamental Research Funds for the Central Universities, China University of Geosciences (Wuhan) (grants CUG180614 and CUGCJ1702), the grant from the Research Grants Council of the Hong Kong Special Administrative Region, China (Project HKBU22301916), the Faculty Research Grant from Hong Kong Baptist University (Project FRG2/15‐16/043), and the funding from State Key Laboratory of Loess and Quaternary Geology, Institute of Earth Environment, CAS (grant SKLLQG1849). Many thanks are given to NASA/GSFC and NOAA/NCEP for producing and making available the GLDAS and reanalysis data sets, and given to CRU for developing and mak ing available the PRCP, SAT, and PET data sets. We acknowledge the World Climate Research Programme's Working Group on Coupled Modeling, which is responsible for CMIP5. The monthly SM data sets from GLDAS are obtained at https://disc.sci.gsfc.nasa. gov/datasets?keywords=GLDAS and from CMIP5 at https://esgf‐node.llnl. gov/search/cmip5/. Reanalysis and SST data sets are obtained at https://www. esrl.noaa.gov/psd/data/gridded/data. ncep.reanalysis.html. CRU data sets are obtained at https://crudata.uea.ac.uk/ cru/data/hrg/. We also thank two famous reviewers and the Editor Allison Steiner, whose comments and suggestions largely improve the quality of our paper.",
year = "2019",
month = apr,
day = "16",
doi = "10.1029/2018JD029776",
language = "English",
volume = "124",
pages = "3765--3782",
journal = "Journal of Geophysical Research: Atmospheres",
issn = "2169-897X",
publisher = "Wiley-Blackwell Publishing Ltd",
number = "7",
}
