AGU: Geophysical Research Letters

 

Editors' Highlight

Changes in the pace of the water cycle indicate that summer is bleeding into spring

The water cycle is linked with natural nutrient cycles and is influenced by agriculture and human society, which in turn influences ecosystem sustainability. Thus a key question regarding climate change revolves around whether the hydrologic cycle is accelerating. To study this, Dirmeyer and Brubaker (2006) applied a water tracing algorithm using atmospheric analyses and observed precipitation for the period of 1979 and 2003. Using past atmospheric conditions including winds, temperature, and moisture content, the authors estimated over all land regions of the globe how much evaporated water could have fallen back as precipitation over the same area. Comparing this with total precipitation measured over the region gives the water recycling ratio. They found that seasonal trends of this ratio are changing over northern latitudes, consistent with an expansion into spring of the warmer-season's regime of water vapor recycling. This trend is also consistent with observed vegetation-related changes often attributed to global climate change.

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