Traditionally, hydrologists focus on the partitioning of precipitation water on the land surface into evaporation and runoff, while ignoring factors that influence precipitation. However, more than half of the evaporation globally returns as precipitation on land. Given this important feedback of the water cycle, changes in land-use and water-use, as well as climate variability and change, impact not only the partitioning of precipitation water but also the atmospheric input of water as precipitation, at both remote and local scales.
This session aims to:
i. investigate the remote and local atmospheric feedbacks from human interventions such as greenhouse gasses, irrigation, deforestation, and reservoirs on the water cycle, precipitation and climate, based on observations and coupled modelling approaches,
ii. investigate the use of hydroclimatic frameworks such as the Budyko framework to understand the human and climate effects on both atmospheric water input and partitioning,
iii. explore the implications of atmospheric feedbacks on the hydrological cycle for land and water management.
Applied studies in this session may adopt fundamental characteristics of the atmospheric branch of the hydrological cycle on different scales. These fundamentals include, but are not limited to, atmospheric circulation, humidity, hydroclimate frameworks, residence times, recycling ratios, sources and sinks of atmospheric moisture, energy balance and climatic extremes. Studies may also evaluate different data sources for atmospheric hydrology and implications for inter-comparison and meta-analysis. Examples of data sources and methodological approaches include observation networks, isotopic studies, conceptual models, Budyko-based hydroclimatological assessments, back-trajectories, reanalysis and fully coupled Earth system model simulations.