Evapotranspiration (ET) is an essential component of the land–atmosphere water cycle. In this work, the trend of ET and its dominant factors during 1982 to 2011 are investigated in the northern drought-prone belt of China (NDPB) based on five datasets, including the gridded FLUXNET, using the Pearson correlation and linear regression methods. Specially, we focus on the increasing contribution of vegetation in the change of ET. During 1982–2011, summer ET significantly increased at the rate of 0.33 mm/year (p < 0.05) in the NDPB. However, similar to global-mean ET, the ET in NDPB also experienced a pronounced fluctuation during 1999 and 2002. The role of water supply differed remarkably before and after the fluctuation while the atmospheric demand maintained weak constraint on ET. Before the fluctuation (during 1982–2000), ET correlated significantly (p < 0.01) and positively with soil moisture, indicating ET was primarily limited by water supply. However, their correlation weakened remarkably after the fluctuation when soil moisture decreased to the lowest level for the past thirty years, indicating that neither moisture supply nor atmospheric demand dominated the ET during this period. In contrast, vegetation leaf area index (LAI) maintained consistent significant (p < 0.01) and positive correlation with ET before and after the fluctuation in the NDPB, and it reflected over 60% of the change in ET. Moreover, the LAI in NDPB increased by 19.6% which was more than double of the global-mean increase. The ET increase due to rising LAI offset the ET decrease due to reduction of soil moisture, and vegetation became the primary constraint on ET during 2001–2011. The expansion of vegetation may intensify the risk of drought and cause conflicting demands for water between the ecosystem and humans in the NDPB, especially in the case of weak summer monsoon.

The surface evapotranspiration (ET) process is the key link in the interaction between land and atmosphere. However, the influence of different environmental factors on ET over transitional climate zones and the physical pattern of the interaction between multiple factors remain unclear. Therefore, based on the continuous observation data during the vegetation growing season of a typical grassland in the Semi-Arid Climate and Environment Observation of Lanzhou University (SACOL) station from 2007 to 2012, the influence pattern of multiple environmental factors on ET over China's transitional climate zone was analysed. Each environmental factor exhibited significant seasonal and interannual variations. The mean value of ET was 1.67 mm day−1. Although the maximum values of sensible heat flux and vapour pressure deficit occurred in April and June, respectively, the maximum values of other environmental factors appeared from July to August. Net radiation, soil moisture, and normalized difference vegetation index (NDVI) were the main controlling factors of ET over the grassland, with correlation coefficients of 0.54, 0.52, and 0.46, respectively. The analysis of multiple environmental factors showed that when soil moisture, wind speed, net radiation, and NDVI reached 0.2 m3 m−3, 2 m s−1, 100 W m−2, and 0.2, respectively, ET varied in contrast with vapour pressure, vapour pressure deficit, and air temperature under the influences of weather processes, land–atmosphere coupling, and drought stress. These findings deepen our understanding of the role of ET in the land–atmosphere coupling process over the transitional climate zone in China.

首先选取2006年QuikSCAT散射计扫描的3次台风个例("珊珊"、"摩羯"及"象神"),分析其获取的台风区域雷达后向散射截面值(σo)在降雨影响下的分布特征.然后依据大气辐射传输理论,考虑降雨对雷达后向散射截面值的影响,引进两个不同形式的降雨辐射传输模型(简称为SY和AMSR模型),并将这两个降雨辐射传输模型分别与NSCAT2模型函数相结合,构建了适合降雨情况的地球物理模型函数(简称为GMF+RAIN).最后,在GMF+RAIN模型的基础上,采用二维变分结合多解方案

The summer monsoon transition zone (SMTZ) in China represents an unusual land type with an agro-pasture ecotone, and it is a climate-sensitive region. Changes in climate aridity and changes in meteorological drought are mutually related yet fundamentally different. In this study, potential evapotranspiration (E_TO) is calculated using Penman–Monteith, based on China’s national meteorological stations data from 1961 to 2013. An E_TO-based climate aridity index (I_AI) and E_TO-based standardized precipitation evapotranspiration index (SPEI) are used as the metrics for climate aridity and meteorological drought, respectively. The result shows a significant difference between climate aridity and meteorological drought in the SMTZ, compared with the monsoon and non-monsoon zone. This difference varies on different time scales (1–48 months), and the greatest differences between I_AI and SPEI are on seasonal and monthly scales (1–12 months), but lower at longer time scales (>12 months). The first reason for the difference is the desynchronicity of meteorological drought and the background climate. After the background climate becomes a relatively arid state (such as 0.96 < I_AI < 1) from a semi-arid state (0.50 < I_AI < 0.80), the continued arid state with weak I_AI fluctuations eventually results in increasingly severe meteorological droughts, or the recurrence of equally severe droughts with drastic reduction. Consequently, the onset of the most severe climate aridity is two to seven months (mostly three to four months) ahead of the onset of the most severe drought events, until the climate returns to a semi-arid state. Second, climate aridity represents the average state of the background climate over a long time period and changes gently, while meteorological droughts are stochastic climate events and change drastically. These findings indicate that I_AI can serve as a predictor of the onset of meteorological drought events, especially in the SMTZ, but it fails to characterize the progression of meteorological drought events well. Therefore, this result is of great significance for drought prediction and early warning.

文章首先利用QuikSCAT散射计获取的海面风场资料,利用华盛顿大学行星边界层(UWPBL)模式对台风海平面气压场进行反演(称为直接反演),并对其强度进行了分析;然后对获取的海面风场,采用变分方法对风场进行分解,分解出无旋和有旋风场,对分解出的有旋风场,再利用UWPBL模式对魔羯台风的海平面气压场进行了反演,对所得结果与通常直接反演、NCEP海平面气压场及台风报文资料进行一一对比,结果表明:新的反演定位的方法对台风海平面气压场中心气压的定位精度有了进一步的提高,此种定位的方法为散射计资料在台风中的实际应用开辟了一条新的思路.

Northern China is a global hotspot for intense land‐atmosphere coupling because its atmospheric and land‐surface features vary substantially, making the mutual feedbacks and linked responses between coupling variables more prominent. Based on Global Land Data Assimilation System (GLDAS) data, land grid data from ECMWF Re‐Analysis project data‐Interim (ERA‐Interim), ECMWF Scheme for Surface Exchanges over Land incorporating land surface hydrology (ERA5‐land) and Global Land Evaporation Amsterdam Model 4 (GLEAM4) global land flux network (FLUXNET) data and weather observation data, the variability of the response of land‐atmosphere coupling processes to climate warming with the spatial change of the climate background in northern China was analyzed. The response mechanisms of the coupling processes between land evapotranspiration and soil moisture, and between surface net radiation and soil moisture to the spatial change of precipitation climate space (defined by the annual mean value of a given physical quantity) were investigated. Additionally, the effect of climate space on land‐atmosphere coupling characteristics was investigated. Results indicate that there were significant spatial differences in the trends of temperature and precipitation variation in northern China, and the characteristics of land‐atmosphere coupling in response to climate change were strongly reliant on the energy and moisture constraints in climate space. The summer monsoon transitional region (SMTR) was found to be a climate‐sensitive zone with competition between moisture and energy, where the response of land‐surface physical quantities to climate change underwent a radical transformation, and land‐atmosphere coupling processes displayed both positive feedback (temperature increasing→soil moisture decreasing→net radiation decreasing→temperature increasing) and negative feedback (temperature increasing→soil moisture decreasing→net radiation increasing→temperature decreasing) to climate warming. These findings would improve the scientific understanding of the characteristics and mechanisms of land‐atmosphere coupling processes for a heterogeneous underlying surface, and may provide an important theoretical basis for climate prediction in northern China.