An Energy Partitioning Perspective on Lake Evaporation Variations to Climate Change

Abstract:

Lake evaporation, nexus between lake hydrological cycle and energy balance, is very sensitive to climate change. Despite considerable observational and modeling studies on water surface evaporation, mechanisms underlying the response of long-term lake evaporation variations to climate change are still uncertain. Two hypotheses have been proposed to explain interannual variations in lake evaporation. In the first hypothesis, water surface evaporation will increase as air temperature rises, at a rate of about 7% K^-1 predicted by the Clausius-Clapeyron equation. The second hypothesis, supported by the universal decline trends in pan evaporation tied to global diming, is that evaporation variabilities are controlled by variabilities in the surface solar radiation. In this study, we firstly validated the evaporation simulations of NCAR’s CLM4.5-LISSS (Lake, Ice, Snow, and Sediment Simulator) against 28 lake observations. Then historical (1991-2010) and future (2005-2100, RCP8.5) lake evaporation were simulated by the same lake model. Results show that global lake evaporation increases with air temperature at a rate faster under the RCP8.5 scenario (3.72 W m^{-2 o}C^-1) than in the historical case (3.03 W m^{-2 o}C^-1). With normalization of energy constrains, both observed and modeled lake evaporation fraction (the ratio of latent heat flux to net radiation minus heat storage) increase as air temperature rises at a rate perfectly captured by the Priestley-Taylor model with the model parameter of 1.26. From the energy partitioning perspective, the lake evaporation variations are explained primary by air temperature not by surface solar radiation.