Contrasting Land and Atmospheric Controls on the Generalized Complementary Relationship of Evaporation Over Grasslands and Forests

Abstract

The generalized complementary relationship (CR) rooted on land–atmosphere coupling has been widely used to study evaporation over various ecosystems. Evaporation estimation models based on CR usually contain two parameters. The first one controls the shape of CR, and the second one is related to potential evaporation (Epo). Previous studies have found substantial variations in these parameters, but how they are affected by land surface and/or the atmosphere under conditions with varying land–atmosphere coupling remains unclear. In this study, the land and atmospheric controls for the generalized CR were comparatively investigated focusing on the two parameters of the sigmoid type function by using the data of 24 grassland and 19 forest flux sites and by considering the contrasting land–atmosphere coupling strength. The strong coupling to the outer atmosphere at the forest sites resulted in a large variation in the Epo‐related parameter and its significant correlation with the mean relative humidity. The shape parameter had a large variation at the grassland sites due to the weak coupling with the outer atmosphere and was significantly correlated with the mean soil water content. The simple parameterizations for the two parameters based on the correlations improved the predictions of monthly actual evaporation compared with the parameterizations for the fixed parameters corresponding to ecosystem types. The effects of land surface wetness and local advections on the generalized CR over grasslands and forests were also discussed respectively.