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Quantifying present and projected future atmospheric moisture transports onto land
Author(s) -
Zahn Matthias,
Allan Richard P.
Publication year - 2013
Publication title -
water resources research
Language(s) - English
Resource type - Journals
SCImago Journal Rank - 1.863
H-Index - 217
eISSN - 1944-7973
pISSN - 0043-1397
DOI - 10.1002/2012wr013209
Subject(s) - environmental science , moisture , precipitation , atmosphere (unit) , shore , evaporation , water cycle , diurnal cycle , water content , atmospheric sciences , climatology , climate change , meteorology , geology , geography , oceanography , geotechnical engineering , ecology , biology
Changing properties of the landward moisture transports play a key role in assessing water availability in a warmed future world. Here the ocean‐land moisture transports and their projected changes in a warmed atmosphere are investigated using high space and time resolution ECHAM5‐model data representative for the current and future atmosphere. The water budgets are estimated from four‐times daily instantaneous moisture transports across the shore‐lines marking the boundaries of the land areas and from accumulated precipitation‐evaporation over land. The transports are presented in very high detail with vertical profiles for each boundary segment. The results indicate land‐ and seaward moisture transports to intensify with warming. Generally, the landward transports increase stronger than the seaward transports resulting in increased moisture budgets too. This means a higher future average availability of water for land areas. Comparison of the budgets from moisture transports and precipitation‐evaporation reveals a systematic bias. This has been linked to numerical issues in previous studies, but we here show that it is connected to the high variability over the diurnal cycle and the maxima of landward transports are likely not considered for many of the regions.