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An investigation on reference crop evapotranspiration trend from 1975 to 2005 in Iran
Author(s) -
Kousari Mohammad Reza,
Ahani Hossein
Publication year - 2012
Publication title -
international journal of climatology
Language(s) - English
Resource type - Journals
SCImago Journal Rank - 1.58
H-Index - 166
eISSN - 1097-0088
pISSN - 0899-8418
DOI - 10.1002/joc.3404
Subject(s) - evapotranspiration , environmental science , sunshine duration , mean radiant temperature , climatology , precipitation , trend analysis , wind speed , relative humidity , spearman's rank correlation coefficient , climate change , meteorology , geography , statistics , mathematics , ecology , geology , biology
Evapotranspiration is one of the most important factors in agriculture and the hydrological cycle that can be influenced by global warming and climatic changes. In this study, the trend of reference crop evapotranspiration (ET 0 ) computed by penman Penman‐Monteith equation and surveyed in 42 synoptic weather stations during last 3 decades (1975–2005). Nonparametric statistical test, Kendall's rank correlation (or τ test) was used to determine ET 0 trends. Although, downward and upward trends were observed, increasing trends had more frequency. Spatial analysis of results indicated upward trends especially in the boundary parts of the country while, no significant trends were distributed in central parts. In addition, correlation analysis between ET 0 trend and other climatic parameters trend (the trend of mean temperature, mean of minimum temperature, and mean of maximum temperature, mean of relative humidity, mean of wind speed and mean of sunshine duration) showed that wind is the most effective parameter on ET 0 . Iran losses more than 70% of annual precipitation by ET 0 . It is obvious that in this country where there are many limitations for water resources management, increase in ET 0 could lead to more problems. Copyright © 2011 Royal Meteorological Society