Averaging over spatiotemporal heterogeneity  substantially biases evapotranspiration rates in  a mechanistic large-scale land evaporation model

Rouholahnejad Freund, Elham; Zappa, Massimiliano; Kirchner, James W.

doi:https://doi.org/10.5194/hess-24-5015-2020

Articles | Volume 24, issue 10

https://doi.org/10.5194/hess-24-5015-2020

© Author(s) 2020. This work is distributed under
the Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 License.

https://doi.org/10.5194/hess-24-5015-2020

© Author(s) 2020. This work is distributed under
the Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 License.

Articles | Volume 24, issue 10

Research article

|

28 Oct 2020

Research article |

| 28 Oct 2020

Averaging over spatiotemporal heterogeneity substantially biases evapotranspiration rates in a mechanistic large-scale land evaporation model

Elham Rouholahnejad Freund, Massimiliano Zappa, and James W. Kirchner

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Final revised paper (published on 28 Oct 2020)
Supplement to the final revised paper
Preprint (discussion started on 12 Feb 2020)
Supplement to the preprint

Interactive discussion

Status: closed

AC: Author comment | RC: Referee comment | SC: Short comment | EC: Editor comment

- Printer-friendly version

- Supplement

RC1: 'Review comments', Anonymous Referee #1, 12 Mar 2020
- AC1: 'response to RC1', Elham Rouholahnejad Freund, 10 Jun 2020
RC2: 'comments on hess-2020-46 manuscript', Anonymous Referee #2, 25 Mar 2020
- AC2: 'response to RC2', Elham Rouholahnejad Freund, 10 Jun 2020

Peer-review completion

AR: Author's response | RR: Referee report | ED: Editor decision

ED: Publish subject to minor revisions (further review by editor) (25 Jun 2020) by Anke Hildebrandt

AR by Anna Wenzel on behalf of the Authors (04 Aug 2020) Author's response Manuscript

ED: Publish subject to minor revisions (review by editor) (25 Aug 2020) by Anke Hildebrandt

AR by Svenja Lange on behalf of the Authors (02 Sep 2020) Author's response Manuscript

ED: Publish as is (10 Sep 2020) by Anke Hildebrandt

Short summary

Evapotranspiration (ET) is the largest flux from the land to the atmosphere and thus contributes to Earth's energy and water balance. Due to its impact on atmospheric dynamics, ET is a key driver of droughts and heatwaves. In this paper, we demonstrate how averaging over land surface heterogeneity contributes to substantial overestimates of ET fluxes. We also demonstrate how one can correct for the effects of small-scale heterogeneity without explicitly representing it in land surface models.