scholarly journals Satellite Remote Sensing of Precipitation and the Terrestrial Water Cycle in a Changing Climate

2019 ◽  
Vol 11 (19) ◽  
pp. 2301 ◽  
Author(s):  
Vincenzo Levizzani ◽  
Elsa Cattani

The water cycle is the most essential supporting physical mechanism ensuring the existence of life on Earth. Its components encompass the atmosphere, land, and oceans. The cycle is composed of evaporation, evapotranspiration, sublimation, water vapor transport, condensation, precipitation, runoff, infiltration and percolation, groundwater flow, and plant uptake. For a correct closure of the global water cycle, observations are needed of all these processes with a global perspective. In particular, precipitation requires continuous monitoring, as it is the most important component of the cycle, especially under changing climatic conditions. Passive and active sensors on board meteorological and environmental satellites now make reasonably complete data available that allow better measurements of precipitation to be made from space, in order to improve our understanding of the cycle’s acceleration/deceleration under current and projected climate conditions. The article aims to draw an up-to-date picture of the current status of observations of precipitation from space, with an outlook to the near future of the satellite constellation, modeling applications, and water resource management.

2017 ◽  
Vol 4 (3) ◽  
pp. 62-72
Author(s):  
O. Zhukorsky ◽  
O. Nykyforuk ◽  
N. Boltyk

Aim. Proper development of animal breeding in the conditions of current global problems and the decrease of anthropogenic burden on environment due to greenhouse gas emissions, caused by animal breeding activity, require the study of interaction processes between animal breeding and external climatic conditions. Methods. The theoretical substantiation of the problem was performed based on scientifi c literature, statistical informa- tion of the UN Food and Agriculture Organization and the data of the National greenhouse gas emissions inventory in Ukraine. Theoretically possible emissions of greenhouse gases into atmosphere due to animal breeding in Ukraine and specifi c farms are calculated by the international methods using the statistical infor- mation about animal breeding in Ukraine and the economic-technological information of the activity of the investigated farms. Results. The interaction between the animal breeding production and weather-and-climate conditions of environment was analyzed. Possible vectors of activity for the industry, which promote global warming and negative processes, related to it, were determined. The main factors, affecting the formation of greenhouse gases from the activity of enterprises, aimed at animal breeding production, were characterized. Literature data, statistical data and calculations were used to analyze the role of animal breeding in the green- house gas emissions in global and national framework as well as at the level of specifi c farms with the consid- eration of individual specifi cities of these farms. Conclusions. Current global problems require clear balance between constant development of sustainable animal breeding and the decrease of the carbon footprint due to the activity of animal breeding.


2019 ◽  
Vol 53 (4) ◽  
pp. 297-312
Author(s):  
Yu. O. Andryushchenko ◽  
V. S. Gavrilenko ◽  
V. A. Kostiushyn ◽  
V. N. Kucherenko ◽  
A. S. Mezinov ◽  
...  

Abstract In the article is analyzed own field data of the authors and scientific publications on the wintering of Anserinae in the Azov-Black Sea region of Ukraine in 1900–2017, but the main data was obtained in frame of international mid-winter counts (IWC) in 2005–2017. It was found that 9 species of Anserinae occur in this region during the different seasons of the year: Anser anser — nesting, wintering and migrating; Rufibrenta ruficollis, A. albifrons, A. erythropus, A. fabalis — migrating and wintering; Branta canadensis, Branta leucopsis, Branta bernicla, Chen caerulescens — vagrant or birds which flew away from captivity (zoo etc.). Eulabeia indica — is possible vagrant species. The most numerous wintering species is A. albifrons, common — Rufibrenta ruficollis, not numerous — Anser anser, the other species are not met annually and registered in a very small number. There was almost tenfold drop in number of wintering geese in the Azov-Black Sea region of Ukraine during the period of counts. The main reasons of such reducing of geese amount are the followwing: weather and climate conditions, changes in the forage acessibility, hunting and poaching pressure, poisoning as a result of deratization of agricultural lands, and from 2014 — the militarization of the Syvash area and stop of water supplying of Crimea through the North Crimean channell. It is likely that the factors mentioned above led to relocating of wintering areas of Anserinae, and resulted in decreasing of their amount in this region.


Agriculture ◽  
2020 ◽  
Vol 10 (7) ◽  
pp. 290
Author(s):  
Koffi Djaman ◽  
Curtis Owen ◽  
Margaret M. West ◽  
Samuel Allen ◽  
Komlan Koudahe ◽  
...  

The highly variable weather under changing climate conditions affects the establishment and the cutoff of crop growing season and exposes crops to failure if producers choose non-adapted relative maturity that matches the characteristics of the crop growing season. This study aimed to determine the relationship between maize hybrid relative maturity and the grain yield and determine the relative maturity range that will sustain maize production in northwest New Mexico (NM). Different relative maturity maize hybrids were grown at the Agricultural Science Center at Farmington ((Latitude 36.69° North, Longitude 108.31° West, elevation 1720 m) from 2003 to 2019 under sprinkler irrigation. A total of 343 hybrids were grouped as early and full season hybrids according to their relative maturity that ranged from 93 to 119 and 64 hybrids with unknown relative maturity. The crops were grown under optimal management condition with no stress of any kind. The results showed non-significant increase in grain yield in early season hybrids and non-significant decrease in grain yield with relative maturity in full season hybrids. The relative maturity range of 100–110 obtained reasonable high grain yields and could be considered under the northwestern New Mexico climatic conditions. However, more research should target the evaluation of different planting date coupled with plant population density to determine the planting window for the early season and full season hybrids for the production optimization and sustainability.


2007 ◽  
Vol 88 (3) ◽  
pp. 375-384 ◽  
Author(s):  
E. S. Takle ◽  
J. Roads ◽  
B. Rockel ◽  
W. J. Gutowski ◽  
R. W. Arritt ◽  
...  

A new approach, called transferability intercomparisons, is described for advancing both understanding and modeling of the global water cycle and energy budget. Under this approach, individual regional climate models perform simulations with all modeling parameters and parameterizations held constant over a specific period on several prescribed domains representing different climatic regions. The transferability framework goes beyond previous regional climate model intercomparisons to provide a global method for testing and improving model parameterizations by constraining the simulations within analyzed boundaries for several domains. Transferability intercomparisons expose the limits of our current regional modeling capacity by examining model accuracy on a wide range of climate conditions and realizations. Intercomparison of these individual model experiments provides a means for evaluating strengths and weaknesses of models outside their “home domains” (domain of development and testing). Reference sites that are conducting coordinated measurements under the continental-scale experiments under the Global Energy and Water Cycle Experiment (GEWEX) Hydrometeorology Panel provide data for evaluation of model abilities to simulate specific features of the water and energy cycles. A systematic intercomparison across models and domains more clearly exposes collective biases in the modeling process. By isolating particular regions and processes, regional model transferability intercomparisons can more effectively explore the spatial and temporal heterogeneity of predictability. A general improvement of model ability to simulate diverse climates will provide more confidence that models used for future climate scenarios might be able to simulate conditions on a particular domain that are beyond the range of previously observed climates.


2021 ◽  
Author(s):  
Christopher Irrgang ◽  
Jan Saynisch-Wagner ◽  
Robert Dill ◽  
Eva Boergens ◽  
Maik Thomas

<p>Space-borne observations of terrestrial water storage (TWS) are an essential ingredient for understanding the Earth's global water cycle, its susceptibility to climate change, and for risk assessments of ecosystems, agriculture, and water management. However, the complex distribution of water masses in rivers, lakes, or groundwater basins remains elusive in coarse-resolution gravimetry observations. We combine machine learning, numerical modeling, and satellite altimetry to build and train a downscaling neural network that recovers simulated TWS from synthetic space-borne gravity observations. The neural network is designed to adapt and validate its training progress by considering independent satellite altimetry records. We show that the neural network can accurately derive TWS anomalies in 2019 after being trained over the years 2003 to 2018. Specifically for validated regions in the Amazonas, we highlight that the neural network can outperform the numerical hydrology model used in the network training.</p><p>https://agupubs.onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1029/2020GL089258</p>


2021 ◽  
Author(s):  
Marie-Claire ten Veldhuis ◽  
Tom van den Berg ◽  
Martine van der Ploeg ◽  
Elias Kaiser ◽  
Satadal Dutta ◽  
...  

<p>Plant transpiration accounts for about half of all terrestrial evaporation (Jasechko et al., 2013). Plants need water for many vital functions including nutrient uptake, growth, maintenance of cell turgor pressure and leaf cooling. Due to the regulation of water transport by stomata in the leaves, plants lose 97% of the water they take via their roots, to the atmosphere. They can be viewed as transpiration-powered pumps on the interface between the soil and atmosphere.</p><p>Measuring plant-water dynamics is essential to gain better insight into their role in the terrestrial water cycle and plant productivity. It can be measured at different levels of integration, from the single cell micro-scale to the ecosystem macro-scale, on time scales from minutes to months. In this contribution, we give an overview of state-of-the-art techniques for transpiration measurement and highlight several promising innovations for monitoring plant-water relations. Some of the techniques we will cover include stomata imaging by microscopy, gas exchange for stomatal conductance and transpiration monitoring, thermometry for water stress detection, sap flow monitoring, hyperspectral imaging, ultrasound spectroscopy, accelerometry, scintillometry and satellite-remote sensing.</p><p>Outlook: To fully assess water transport within the soil-plant-atmosphere continuum, a variety of techniques is required to monitor environmental variables in combination with biological responses at different scales. Yet this is not sufficient: to truly solve for spatial heterogeneity as well as temporal variability, dense network sampling is needed.</p><p>In PLANTENNA (https://www.4tu.nl/plantenna/en/) a team of electronics, precision and microsystems engineers together with plant and environmental scientists develop and implement innovative (3D-)sensor networks that measure plant and environmental parameters at high resolution and low cost. Our main challenge for in-situ sensor autonomy (“plug and forget”) is energy: we want the sensor nodes to be hyper-efficient and rely fully on (miniaturised) energy-harvesting.</p><p><strong>REFERENCES: </strong></p><p>Jasechko, S., Sharp, Z. D., Gibson, J. J., Birks, S. J., Yi, Y., & Fawcett, P. J. (2013). Terrestrial water fluxes dominated by transpiration. Nature, 496(7445), 347-350.<br>Plantenna: "Internet of Plants". (n.d.). https://www.4tu.nl/plantenna/en/</p><p> </p>


2016 ◽  
Vol 20 (1) ◽  
pp. 143-159 ◽  
Author(s):  
N. Le Vine ◽  
A. Butler ◽  
N. McIntyre ◽  
C. Jackson

Abstract. Land surface models (LSMs) are prospective starting points to develop a global hyper-resolution model of the terrestrial water, energy, and biogeochemical cycles. However, there are some fundamental limitations of LSMs related to how meaningfully hydrological fluxes and stores are represented. A diagnostic approach to model evaluation and improvement is taken here that exploits hydrological expert knowledge to detect LSM inadequacies through consideration of the major behavioural functions of a hydrological system: overall water balance, vertical water redistribution in the unsaturated zone, temporal water redistribution, and spatial water redistribution over the catchment's groundwater and surface-water systems. Three types of information are utilized to improve the model's hydrology: (a) observations, (b) information about expected response from regionalized data, and (c) information from an independent physics-based model. The study considers the JULES (Joint UK Land Environmental Simulator) LSM applied to a deep-groundwater chalk catchment in the UK. The diagnosed hydrological limitations and the proposed ways to address them are indicative of the challenges faced while transitioning to a global high resolution model of the water cycle.


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