Recent global decline in rainfall interception loss due to altered rainfall regimes.
basic_science · Level V
Where this comes from
- Record sourced from PubMed, PMID 36496496.
- Also identified by DOI 10.1038/s41467-022-35414-y and PMC identifier 9741630.
- Licence recorded as CC BY.
- The licence permits redistribution, so the abstract is shown in full and the full text is available from the publisher.
Abstract
Evaporative loss of interception (E<sub>i</sub>) is the first process occurring during rainfall, yet its role in large-scale surface water balance has been largely underexplored. Here we show that E<sub>i</sub> can be inferred from flux tower evapotranspiration measurements using physics-informed hybrid machine learning models built under wet versus dry conditions. Forced by satellite and reanalysis data, this framework provides an observationally constrained estimate of E<sub>i</sub>, which is on average 84.1 ± 1.8 mm per year and accounts for 8.6 ± 0.2% of total rainfall globally during 2000-2020. Rainfall frequency regulates long-term average E<sub>i</sub> changes, and rainfall intensity, rather than vegetation attributes, determines the fraction of E<sub>i</sub> in gross precipitation (E<sub>i</sub>/P). Rain events have become less frequent and more intense since 2000, driving a global decline in E<sub>i</sub> (and E<sub>i</sub>/P) by 4.9% (6.7%). This suggests that ongoing rainfall changes favor a partitioning towards more soil moisture and runoff, benefiting ecosystem functions but simultaneously increasing flood risks.
Medical subject headings
- Ecosystem
- Rain