the Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 License.
the Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 License.
Trends in evapotranspiration and its drivers in Great Britain: 1961 to 2015
Abstract. In a warming climate, the water budget of the land is subject to varying forces such as increasing evaporative demand, mainly through the increased temperature, and changes to the precipitation, which might go up or down.
Using a verified, physically based model with 55 years of observation-based meteorological forcing, an analysis of the water budget demonstrates that Great Britain is getting warmer and wetter.
Increases in precipitation (3.0 ± 2.0 mm yr−1 yr−1) and air temperature (0.20 ± 0.13 K decade−1) are driving increases in river flow (2.16 mm yr−1 yr−1) and evapotranspiration (0.87 mm yr−1 yr−1), with no significant trend in the soil moisture.
The change in evapotranspiration is roughly constant across the regions whereas runoff varies greatly between regions: the biggest change is seen in Scotland (4.56 mm yr−1 yr−1), where precipitation increases were also the greatest (5.4 ± 3.0 mm yr−1 yr−1) and smallest trend (0.29 mm yr−1 yr−1) is seen in the English Lowlands (East Anglia and Midlands), where the increase in rainfall is not statistically significant (1.1 ± 0.7 mm yr−1 yr−1).
Relative to their contribution to the evapotranspiration budget, the increase in interception is higher than the other components. This is due to the fact that it correlates strongly with precipitation which is seeing a greater increase than the potential evapotranspiration. This leads to a higher increase in actual evapotranspiration that the potential evapotranspiration, and a negligible increase in soil moisture or groundwater store.
- Preprint
(2186 KB) - Metadata XML
- BibTeX
- EndNote
-
RC1: 'Referee Comment', Anonymous Referee #1, 12 May 2018
- AC1: 'Reply to two reviewers', Eleanor Blyth, 11 Jul 2018
-
RC2: 'Review of Blyth et al 2018', Anonymous Referee #2, 13 Jun 2018
- AC1: 'Reply to two reviewers', Eleanor Blyth, 11 Jul 2018
-
RC1: 'Referee Comment', Anonymous Referee #1, 12 May 2018
- AC1: 'Reply to two reviewers', Eleanor Blyth, 11 Jul 2018
-
RC2: 'Review of Blyth et al 2018', Anonymous Referee #2, 13 Jun 2018
- AC1: 'Reply to two reviewers', Eleanor Blyth, 11 Jul 2018
Viewed
HTML | XML | Total | BibTeX | EndNote | |
---|---|---|---|---|---|
1,761 | 564 | 58 | 2,383 | 77 | 78 |
- HTML: 1,761
- PDF: 564
- XML: 58
- Total: 2,383
- BibTeX: 77
- EndNote: 78
Viewed (geographical distribution)
Country | # | Views | % |
---|
Total: | 0 |
HTML: | 0 |
PDF: | 0 |
XML: | 0 |
- 1
Cited
4 citations as recorded by crossref.
- Assessment of precipitation error propagation in multi-model global water resource reanalysis M. Ehsan Bhuiyan et al. 10.5194/hess-23-1973-2019
- Identification of the Meteorological Variables Influencing Evapotranspiration Variability Over Florida M. Valipour & S. Guzmán 10.1007/s10666-022-09828-3
- Aquifer recharge in the Piedmont Alpine zone: historical trends and future scenarios E. Brussolo et al. 10.5194/hess-26-407-2022
- Using observed river flow data to improve the hydrological functioning of the JULES land surface model (vn4.3) used for regional coupled modelling in Great Britain (UKC2) A. Martínez-de la Torre et al. 10.5194/gmd-12-765-2019