The Effect of Irrigation on Warm Season Precipitation in the Southern Great Plains

Barnston, Anthony G.; Schickedanz, Paul T.

doi:10.1175/1520-0450(1984)023<0865:teoiow>2.0.co;2

Cited by 205 publications

(125 citation statements)

References 4 publications

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“…Koster et al 2004). More importantly for our study, there is evidence for irrigation enhancement of precipitation over North America (Barnston and Schickedanz 1984;DeAngelis et al 2010). Despite the uncertainties, the secondary effects of irrigation on precipitation and other atmospheric variables may be important for understanding how irrigation impacts on surface temperatures will change into the future.…”

Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Irrigation induced surface cooling in the context of modern and increased greenhouse gas forcing

2010

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There is evidence that expected warming trends from increased greenhouse gas (GHG) forcing have been locally 'masked' by irrigation induced cooling, and it is uncertain how the magnitude of this irrigation masking effect will change in the future. Using an irrigation dataset integrated into a global general circulation model, we investigate the equilibrium magnitude of irrigation induced cooling under modern (Year 2000) and increased (A1B Scenario, Year 2050) GHG forcing, using modern irrigation rates in both scenarios. For the modern scenario, the cooling is largest over North America, India, the Middle East, and East Asia. Under increased GHG forcing, this cooling effect largely disappears over North America, remains relatively unchanged over India, and intensifies over parts of China and the Middle East. For North America, irrigation significantly increases precipitation under modern GHG forcing; this precipitation enhancement largely disappears under A1B forcing, reducing total latent heat fluxes and the overall irrigation cooling effect. Over India, irrigation rates are high enough to keep pace with increased evaporative demand from the increased GHG forcing and the magnitude of the cooling is maintained. Over China, GHG forcing reduces precipitation and shifts the region to a drier evaporative regime, leading to a relatively increased impact of additional water from irrigation on the surface energy balance. Irrigation enhances precipitation in the Middle East under increased GHG forcing, increasing total latent heat fluxes and enhancing the irrigation cooling effect. Ultimately, the extent to which irrigation will continue to compensate for the warming from increased GHG forcing will primarily depend on changes in the background evaporative regime, secondary irrigation effects (e.g. clouds, precipitation), and the ability of societies to maintain (or increase) current irrigation rates.

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Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Irrigation induced surface cooling in the context of modern and increased greenhouse gas forcing

2010

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“…Irrigation-induced precipitation has been studied for quite some time and irrigation has been shown to have a significant effect on local and regional precipitation patterns (e.g., Barnston and Schickedanz, 1984;Moore and Rojstaczer, 2001). For instance despite regional decline, Tuinenberg et al (2011) found a positive precipitation trend in climate stations located in the irrigated regions of the southern Asia.…”

Section: Online Representationmentioning

confidence: 99%

On inclusion of water resource management in Earth system models – Part 1: Problem definition and representation of water demand

Nazemi

Wheater

2015

Hydrol. Earth Syst. Sci.

164

101

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Abstract. Human activities have caused various changes to the Earth system, and hence the interconnections between human activities and the Earth system should be recognized and reflected in models that simulate Earth system processes. One key anthropogenic activity is water resource management, which determines the dynamics of human-water interactions in time and space and controls human livelihoods and economy, including energy and food production. There are immediate needs to include water resource management in Earth system models. First, the extent of human water requirements is increasing rapidly at the global scale and it is crucial to analyze the possible imbalance between water demands and supply under various scenarios of climate change and across various temporal and spatial scales. Second, recent observations show that human-water interactions, manifested through water resource management, can substantially alter the terrestrial water cycle, affect land-atmospheric feedbacks and may further interact with climate and contribute to sea-level change. Due to the importance of water resource management in determining the future of the global water and climate cycles, the World Climate Research Program's Global Energy and Water Exchanges project (WRCP-GEWEX) has recently identified gaps in describing humanwater interactions as one of the grand challenges in Earth system modeling (GEWEX, 2012). Here, we divide water resource management into two interdependent elements, related firstly to water demand and secondly to water supply and allocation. In this paper, we survey the current literature on how various components of water demand have been included in large-scale models, in particular land surface and global hydrological models. Issues of water supply and allocation are addressed in a companion paper. The available algorithms to represent the dominant demands are classified based on the demand type, mode of simulation and underlying modeling assumptions. We discuss the pros and cons of available algorithms, address various sources of uncertainty and highlight limitations in current applications. We conclude that current capability of large-scale models to represent human water demands is rather limited, particularly with respect to future projections and coupled landatmospheric simulations. To fill these gaps, the available models, algorithms and data for representing various water demands should be systematically tested, intercompared and improved. In particular, human water demands should be considered in conjunction with water supply and allocation, particularly in the face of water scarcity and unknown future climate. Background and scope Large-scale modeling -an introduction to land-surface and global hydrological modelsThe Earth system is an integrated system that unifies the physical processes at the Earth's surface. These processes include a wide range of feedbacks and interactions between and within the atmosphere, land and oceans and cover the global cycles of climate, water and carbon that sup...

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“…For example, Alpert and Mandel [1986] showed that a decreasing trend in the diurnal surface wind and temperature variabilities correlated well with enhanced irrigation in Israel. Large-scale irrigation has also been shown to influence local and regional precipitation [Barnston and Schickedanz, 1984;Otterman et al, 1990;Moore and Rojstaczer, 2002]. While these and other recent studies established an important link between enhanced irrigation and mesoclimatic change, little information is available on the direct influence of large-scale irrigation on water use efficiencies and potential evaporation [Zimmermann, 1999].…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Irrigation‐induced changes in potential evapotranspiration in southeastern Turkey: Test and application of Bouchet's complementary hypothesis

Özdoğan

Salvucci

2004

Water Resources Research

102

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[1] Since the early 1980s the southeastern part of Turkey has experienced major land use changes because of increasing irrigation. To determine the influence of large-scale irrigation on surface hydrologic fluxes, we investigated feedback mechanisms between the land surface and atmosphere within the framework of Bouchet's complementary relationship between potential and actual evapotranspiration. Using 23 years of meteorological observations of temperature, humidity, wind speed, and radiation within the advection-aridity model (which is built on the complementary theory), we found that potential evaporation has decreased over 50%, from about 14 mm d À1 to about 7 mm d À1 , paralleling the increase in irrigated acreage over the same period. Pan evaporation data show a similar trend. The observed decline in potential evaporation is a direct result of decreases in wind speed and, to a lesser degree, increases in humidity. A comparison between reference values of evapotranspiration obtained from irrigation water use and evapotranspiration estimates from the advection-aridity method show a reasonable correlation (root-mean-square error = 1.1 mm d À1 ), especially for large values of both variables. These results suggest that the rapid expansion of irrigation in southeastern Turkey has strongly modified the lower atmosphere in a way that appears consistent with Bouchet's complementary theory.

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The Effect of Irrigation on Warm Season Precipitation in the Southern Great Plains

Cited by 205 publications

References 4 publications

Irrigation induced surface cooling in the context of modern and increased greenhouse gas forcing

Irrigation induced surface cooling in the context of modern and increased greenhouse gas forcing

On inclusion of water resource management in Earth system models – Part 1: Problem definition and representation of water demand

Irrigation‐induced changes in potential evapotranspiration in southeastern Turkey: Test and application of Bouchet's complementary hypothesis

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