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Uncertainties in summer evapotranspiration changes over Europe and implications for regional climate change
Author(s) -
Boé Julien,
Terray Laurent
Publication year - 2008
Publication title -
geophysical research letters
Language(s) - English
Resource type - Journals
SCImago Journal Rank - 2.007
H-Index - 273
eISSN - 1944-8007
pISSN - 0094-8276
DOI - 10.1029/2007gl032417
Subject(s) - evapotranspiration , environmental science , coupled model intercomparison project , precipitation , climate change , climatology , climate model , limiting , atmospheric sciences , meteorology , geography , geology , ecology , oceanography , biology , mechanical engineering , engineering
Changes in summer evapotranspiration over central and eastern Europe are very uncertain in the World Climate Research Programme's (WRCP) Coupled Model Intercomparison Project phase 3 (CMIP3) multi‐model data set. We show that the response of evapotranspiration in the future climate over this area is strongly linked to the way the models represent the respective role of soil moisture and radiative energy at surface on evapotranspiration at the interannual time scale in the present climate. Actually, the models for which the limiting effect of soil moisture upon evapotranspiration is already large in the present climate generally responds by a decrease of evapotranspiration whereas the other models generally exhibit an increase of evapotranspiration. The uncertainties in evapotranspiration changes seem to have an important impact in precipitation and temperature changes. Finally, we assess the realism of the controls of evapotranspiration in the CMIP3 models over France using a hydro‐meteorological simulation.