The Influence of the Underlying Land Surface on the Water Exchange between Earth and Atmosphere

• Main Authors: Antonovsky, M.Y., Kolosov, P.A., Minin, A.A.
• Format: Book
• Language: English
• Published: WP-88-108 1988
• Subjects: taiga
• Online Access: https://pure.iiasa.ac.at/id/eprint/3098/; https://pure.iiasa.ac.at/id/eprint/3098/1/WP-88-108.pdf

In this Working Paper, the authors produce maps of IWR, an index of water exchange variability proposed by the National Environment and Climate Monitoring Laboratory, Moscow. Values of the index are computed from measurements of monthly precipitation and estimates of monthly evapo-transpiration obtained from a large number of heat budget stations in the Soviet Union. Values of IWR correspond remarkably with ecosystem types, the isopleths being closely packed along ecotones (separating forest and taiga, for example). Given some future climate scenario, the method could be used to estimate changes in the locations of ecotones. Thus the paper is a contribution to the ICSU IGBP program (International Geosphere-Biosphere Program) and as such, is to be welcomed.