Responses of global terrestrial evapotranspiration to climate change and increasing atmospheric CO2 in the 21st century

Abstract

Quantifying the spatial and temporal patterns of the water lost to the atmosphere through land surface evapotranspiration (ET) is essential for understanding the global hydrological cycle, but remains much uncertain. In this study, we use the Dynamic Land Ecosystem Model to estimate the global terrestrial ET during 2000-2009 and project its changes in response to climate change and increasing atmospheric CO under two IPCC SRES scenarios (A2 and B1) during 2010-2099. Modeled results show a mean annual global terrestrial ET of about 549 (545-552) mm yr during 2000-2009. Relative to the 2000s, global terrestrial ET for the 2090s would increase by 30.7 mm yr (5.6%) and 13.2 mm yr (2.4%) unde..