Skip to main content

Thank you for visiting nature.com. You are using a browser version with limited support for CSS. To obtain the best experience, we recommend you use a more up to date browser (or turn off compatibility mode in Internet Explorer). In the meantime, to ensure continued support, we are displaying the site without styles and JavaScript.

  • Comment
  • Published:

Urgent need to improve modelled sensitivity of evaporation to vegetation change

Nature Water volume 2, pages 211–214 (2024)Cite this article

Subjects

Earth system model projections of vegetation–climate feedback frequently depend on inaccurate values of evaporation sensitivity to vegetation changes, potentially resulting in misleading conclusions. A promising avenue involves improving the transpiration partitioning parameterizations and incorporating groundwater connections to refine the modelled sensitivity.

This is a preview of subscription content, access via your institution

Relevant articles

Open Access articles citing this article.

Access options

Buy this article

  • Purchase on SpringerLink
  • Instant access to the full article PDF.

USD 39.95

Prices may be subject to local taxes which are calculated during checkout

Fig. 1: Disparities in climate responses to idealized deforestation within the deforest-glob experiment of LUMIP.
Fig. 2: Schematic diagram highlighting problems in transpiration partitioning in Earth system models.

Data availability

The CMIP6 model outputs are available from the CMIP6 archive (https://esgf-node.llnl.gov/search/cmip6/). The GLEAM data is available at https://www.gleam.eu/.

References

  1. Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change Climate Change and Land: an IPCC Special Report on Climate Change, Desertification, Land Degradation, Sustainable Land Management, Food Security, and Greenhouse Gas Fluxes in Terrestrial Ecosystems (eds Shukla, P. R. et al.) (IPCC, 2019).

  2. Bonan, G. B. Science 320, 1444–1449 (2008).

    Article  CAS  PubMed  Google Scholar 

  3. Yang, Y. et al. Nat. Rev. Earth Environ. 4, 626–641 (2023).

    Article  Google Scholar 

  4. Zeng, Z. et al. Nat. Clim. Change 7, 432–436 (2017).

    Article  Google Scholar 

  5. Duveiller, G. et al. Earth Syst. Sci. Data 10, 1265–1279 (2018).

    Article  Google Scholar 

  6. Zeng, Z. et al. J. Clim. 31, 2633–2650 (2018).

    Article  Google Scholar 

  7. Alkama, R. & Cescatti, A. Science 351, 600–604 (2016).

    Article  CAS  PubMed  Google Scholar 

  8. Lawrence, D. M. et al. Geosci. Model Dev. 9, 2973–2998 (2016).

    Article  Google Scholar 

  9. Lian, X. et al. Nat. Clim. Change 8, 640–646 (2018).

    Article  Google Scholar 

  10. Good, S. P., Noone, D. & Bowen, G. Science 349, 175–177 (2015).

    Article  CAS  PubMed  Google Scholar 

  11. Martens, B. et al. Geosci. Model. Dev. 10, 1903–1925 (2017).

    Article  Google Scholar 

  12. Luo, X. et al. J. Geophys. Res. Biogeosci. 123, 207–225 (2018).

    Article  Google Scholar 

  13. Condon, L. E., Atchley, A. L. & Maxwell, R. M. Nat. Commun. 11, 873 (2020).

    Article  CAS  PubMed  PubMed Central  Google Scholar 

  14. Maxwell, R. M. & Condon, L. E. Science 353, 377–380 (2016).

    Article  CAS  PubMed  Google Scholar 

  15. Dai, Y. et al. Soil 5, 137–158 (2019).

    Article  CAS  Google Scholar 

Download references

Acknowledgements

This study was supported by the National Natural Science Foundation of China (42371026 and 42071022) and by the start-up fund provided by the Southern University of Science and Technology (29/Y01296602, 29/Y01296122 and 29/Y01296222).

Author information

Authors and Affiliations

  1. School of Environmental Science and Engineering, Southern University of Science and Technology, Shenzhen, China

    Dashan Wang & Zhenzhong Zeng

Authors
  1. Dashan Wang
    View author publications

    Search author on:PubMed Google Scholar

  2. Zhenzhong Zeng
    View author publications

    Search author on:PubMed Google Scholar

Corresponding author

Correspondence to Zhenzhong Zeng.

Ethics declarations

Competing interests

The authors declare no competing interests.

Peer review

Peer review information

Nature Water thanks the anonymous reviewers for their contribution to the peer review of this work.

Rights and permissions

Reprints and permissions

About this article

Check for updates. Verify currency and authenticity via CrossMark

Cite this article

Wang, D., Zeng, Z. Urgent need to improve modelled sensitivity of evaporation to vegetation change. Nat Water 2, 211–214 (2024). https://doi.org/10.1038/s44221-024-00203-y

Download citation

  • Published:

  • Version of record:

  • Issue date:

  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1038/s44221-024-00203-y

This article is cited by

Search

Advanced search

Quick links

Nature Briefing

Sign up for the Nature Briefing newsletter — what matters in science, free to your inbox daily.

Get the most important science stories of the day, free in your inbox. Sign up for Nature Briefing