Abstract
Evaporation (E) from about 300 million lakes worldwide without plant physiological constraints directly reflects hydrological response to atmospheric forcings. However, it remains inadequately understood about what regulate spatial variability of global lake E across seasons. Here we show that vertical vapor pressure difference ( eD ) accounts for 66% of the spatial variability of annual E, followed by wind speed (16%). The eD is also the predominant factor modulating diurnal variability in E and causing greater E at night than during the daytime. As a consequence, spatial variability in nighttime E strongly regulates that in global E across seasons. Therefore, the observed widespread, heterogeneous changes in lake surface temperature that imply spatial variability in eD may have contributed to changes in global E variability.
| Original language | English (US) |
|---|---|
| Article number | 054006 |
| Journal | Environmental Research Letters |
| Volume | 17 |
| Issue number | 5 |
| DOIs | |
| State | Published - 2022 |
| Externally published | Yes |
Bibliographical note
Funding Information:We thank the two anonymous reviewers for their constructive comments that greatly improved the quality of our manuscript. We acknowledge support by National Science Foundation (EAR-2002644, EAR-2006281, EAR-2003076). U F was financially supported in part by the Government of Punjab in collaboration with University of Agriculture, Faisalabad, Pakistan.
Publisher Copyright:
© 2022 The Author(s). Published by IOP Publishing Ltd.
Keywords
- hydrological cycle
- lake evaporation
- lake model
- vertical vapor pressure difference
- water surface energy budget