Soil moisture signature in global weather balloon soundings

Jasper M.C. Denissen*, René Orth, Hendrik Wouters, Diego G. Miralles, Chiel C. van Heerwaarden, Jordi Vilà Guerau de Arellano, Adriaan J. Teuling

*Corresponding author for this work

Research output: Contribution to journalArticleAcademicpeer-review

23 Citations (Scopus)

Abstract

The land surface influences the atmospheric boundary layer (ABL) through its impacts on the partitioning of available energy into evaporation and warming. Previous research on understanding this complex link focused mainly on site-scale flux observations, gridded satellite observations, climate modeling, and machine-learning experiments. Observational evidence of land surface conditions, among which soil moisture, impacting ABL properties at intermediate landscape scales is lacking. Here, we use a combination of global weather balloon soundings, satellite-observed soil moisture, and a coupled land-atmosphere model to infer the soil moisture impact on the ABL. The inferred relationship between soil moisture and surface flux partitioning reflects distinctive energy- and water-limited regimes, even at the landscape scale. We find significantly different behavior between those two regimes, associating dry conditions with on average warmer (≈3 K), higher (≈400 m) and drier (≈1 kPa) afternoon ABLs than wet conditions. This evidence of land–atmosphere coupling from globally distributed atmospheric measurements highlights the need for an accurate representation of land–atmosphere coupling into climate models and their climate change projections.

Original languageEnglish
Article number13
Journalnpj Climate and Atmospheric Science
Volume4
Issue number1
DOIs
Publication statusPublished - 4 Mar 2021

Fingerprint

Dive into the research topics of 'Soil moisture signature in global weather balloon soundings'. Together they form a unique fingerprint.

Cite this