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A Soil Moisture–Rainfall Feedback Mechanism: 2. Numerical experiments
Author(s) -
Zheng Xinyu,
Eltahir Elfatih A. B.
Publication year - 1998
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 - 10.1029/97wr03497
Subject(s) - anomaly (physics) , water content , environmental science , monsoon , moisture , radiative transfer , climatology , atmospheric sciences , geology , meteorology , geotechnical engineering , geography , physics , condensed matter physics , quantum mechanics
Here we develop a numerical model to investigate the hypothesis proposed by a companion paper [ Eltahir , this issue], which describes a soil moisture–rainfall feedback mechanism. The model is designed to describe the seasonal evolution of the West African monsoon rainfall and is used to perform numerical experiments that elucidate the mechanisms of the response of rainfall to soil moisture anomalies. A significant rainfall anomaly is simulated by the model in response to a hypothetical soil moisture anomaly that has been imposed during early summer. However, the magnitude of this anomaly almost vanishes when the net radiation at the surface is not allowed to respond to the soil moisture anomaly. Hence the results of the numerical experiments support the proposed hypothesis and highlight the crucial importance of the radiative and dynamical feedbacks in regulating the rainfall anomalies that result from the soil moisture anomalies.