Aridity is generally defined as the ‘degree to which a climate lacks moisture to sustain life in terrestrial ecosystems’. Several recent studies using the ‘aridity index’ (the ratio of potential evaporation to precipitation), have concluded that aridity will increase with CO2 because of increasing temperature. However, the ‘aridity index’ is—counterintuitively—not a direct measure of aridity pe...

In the purview of global warming, the present study attempts to project changes in climate and quantify the changes in aridity of two coastal districts in south India under the RCP 4.5 trajectory. Projected climate change output generated by RegCM 4.4 model, pertaining to 14 grid points located within the study area, was analyzed and processed for this purpose. The meteorological parameters tem...

Available energy (often expressed in terms of potential evaporation) and precipitation largely determine annual evapotranspiration and runoff rates in a region. The ratio of annual potential evaporation to precipitation, referred to as the aridity index by Budyko, has been shown to describe the evaporation ratio (the ratio of annual evapotranspiration to precipitation) of catchments from a rang...

For the instantaneous dryness mapping, the satellite derived aridity index is proposed. The proposed index is derived from the day/night surface temperature and the maximum solar flux, also it is proved that the index corresponds to the thermal admittance from the theoretical analysis of the surface energy balance. From the MODIS LST and reflectance product during 10 years, daily/monthly global...

this study is carried out to estimate the potential evapotranspiration (pet) and crop coefficient (kc) for wheat, bl 3235 variety. a lysimeter is installed to estimate pet at the experimental farm of agricultural research center of bhairahawa, which is located in western part of nepal. the blaney-criddle formula is used to estimate the kc for wheat. the estimated values of pet and kc for wheat ...

Reference evapotranspiration (ET0) plays an irreplaceable role in regional dry/wet 15 conditions under the background of climate change. Based on the FAO Penman-Monteith method 16 and daily climate variables, ET0 was calculated for 22 stations in and around Songnen Grassland, 17 northeast China, during 1960-2014. The temporal and spatial variations of ET0 and precipitation (P) 18 were comprehen...

this study was conducted to determine the potential evapotranspiration (pet) of maize, the crop coefficient (kc) under full water requirement as well as the cause of decrease in maize yield. it was determined that the seasonal pet of maize is about 486.6 mm. the kc under full water supply was found to be: 0.11, 0.35, 1.51 and 0.34 for initial, development, midseason and the late season stages r...

At the species level, plants can respond to climate changes by changing their leaf traits; however, there is scant information regarding the responses of morphological, physiological and anatomical traits of plant functional types (PFTs) to aridity. Herein, the leaf traits of five PFTs representing 17 plant species in temperate grasslands were examined along a large-scale aridity gradient in no...

Higher aridity and more extreme rainfall events in drylands are predicted due to climate change. Yet, it is unclear how changing precipitation regimes may affect nitrogen (N) cycling, especially in areas with extremely high aridity. Here we investigate soil N isotopic values (δ(15)N) along a 3,200 km aridity gradient and reveal a hump-shaped relationship between soil δ(15)N and aridity index (A...