An assessment of annual trends in actual evapotranspiration (AET) and associated meteorological inputs is performed at 101 locations across Canada with available long-term hourly surface climate observations to determine if AET in Canada is increasing in relation to observed increases in air temperature. AET was estimated for the dominant land cover class, with representative soil and leaf area index conditions, within a 50 km ϫ 50 km window around each location for the period 1960-2000. The Ecological Assimilation of Land and Climate Observations (EALCO) land surface model, which simulates coupled carbon, energy, and water cycles, was applied to estimate AET on a half-hourly basis at each location using in situ meteorological measurements and ambient atmospheric CO 2 concentrations. Increases in annual AET, of up to 0.73% yr Ϫ1 , were identified at 81 locations, and decreases, of up to 0.25% yr Ϫ1 , were found at the remaining 20 stations. Statistically significant increasing trends were detected in 35% of the locations with the majority corresponding to Atlantic and Pacific coastal regions. Increasing trends were generally related to increasing temperature and total downwelling surface radiation trends in eastern Canada and increasing temperature, surface radiation, and precipitation trends in western Canada. In sharp contrast to other studies based on simpler AET models, annual AET trends in the prairie climate zone were mixed in terms of increases and decreases with no locations showing statistically significant trends. Future studies focused on scaling AET model estimates to subbasins or basins are required both to account for this spatial variability in soil conditions and to permit water budget closure validation.
Hourly surface observations from the Canadian Weather Energy and Engineering Dataset were analyzed with respect to long-term wind direction drift or rotation. Most of the Canadian landmass, including the High Arctic, exhibits a spatially consistent and remarkably steady anticyclonic rotation of wind direction. The period of anticyclonic rotation recorded at 144 out of 149 Canadian meteostations directly correlated with latitude and ranged from 7 days at Medicine Hat (50°N, 110°W) to 25 days at Resolute (75°N, 95°W). Only five locations in the vicinity of the Rocky Mountains and Pacific Coast were found to obey a “negative” (i.e., cyclonic) rotation. The observed anticyclonic rotation appears to be a deterministic, virtually ubiquitous, and highly persistent feature of continental surface wind. These findings are directly applicable to probabilistic assessments of airborne pollutants
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