Earlier vegetation greening under climate change raises evapotranspiration and thus lowers spring soil moisture. […] We provide observational evidence that increased foliage cover over the Northern Hemisphere, during 1982–2011, triggers an additional soil moisture deficit that is further carried over into summer. […] attribute the driving process to be larger increases in evapotranspiration than in precipitation. This extra soil drying is projected to amplify the frequency and intensity of summer heatwaves. Most feedbacks operate locally, except for a notable teleconnection where extra moisture transpired over Europe is transported to central Siberia. Model results illustrate that this teleconnection offsets Siberian soil moisture losses from local spring greening.
15
Jun
2022