Recent changes in pan-evaporation dynamics in China

Abstract

[1] Pan‐evaporation (Epan) as the indicator of atmospheric evaporative demand has decreased worldwide with climate change in the last decades, which is called “Pan Evaporation Paradox”. This study investigates the recent changes in Epan dynamics in China using the observed Epan records for the period 1960–2007. The records show that Epan decreased in China from 1960 to 1991 by �5.4 mm yr �2 . The attribution results show that the significant decreases (P 0.1). The results show that increasing air temperature dominated the change in Epan, which offset the effect of wind speed and led to the increase in Epan. Citation: Liu, X., Y. Luo, D. Zhang, M. Zhang, and C. Liu (2011), Recent changes in pan‐evaporation dynamics in China, Geophys. Res. Lett., 38, L13404, doi:10.1029/2011GL047929.