Evapotranspiration tightly links water with energy (heat) and is susceptible to multiple factors such as land-use properties and climate change. Human activities have altered the originally homogeneous underlying surface in some desert regions, increasing the complexity of scientifically estimating evapotranspiration and hindering further understanding of climate change adaptation and ecological security maintenance in arid areas. Dr. Huo Wen, a researcher at the Urumqi Institute of Desert Meteorology, China Meteorological Administration, and her desert boundary layer team employed the Penman-Monteith (PM) calculation model. Using intensive observational data from natural sandy lands and artificial green spaces in the hinterland of the Taklamakan Desert in 2015, they accurately assessed the applicability and error analysis of evapotranspiration calculation methods under different underlying surface backgrounds and quantified the influence and contribution of meteorological control factors to evapotranspiration calculations. The study found that the PM-H algorithm performs well in desert areas, and the vegetation growth cycle significantly affects evapotranspiration. The difference between saturated vapor pressure and actual vapor pressure, along with the 2m average wind speed, are positive factors influencing evapotranspiration calculations, while the 2m average temperature and the slope of saturated vapor pressure (∆) are negative factors. To further extend the applicability of PM-H, this study combined high-resolution reanalysis grid data (ERA5, 0.25°×0.25°) to calculate evapotranspiration in the Tarim Basin, revealing that the average potential evapotranspiration in the Tarim Basin reached 2750 mm in 2015. This demonstrates that integrating the PM-H algorithm with high-resolution reanalysis data yields average potential evapotranspiration values within a reasonable range for the Tarim Basin, further proving that the PM-H algorithm can be applied to large-scale evapotranspiration calculations. The PM-H algorithm can accurately assess evapotranspiration in patchily distributed green and desert areas of arid regions, offering globally universal applicability and providing scientific support for sustainable development and ecological environment research in arid zones.

The related findings were published in Frontiers in Earth Science under the title "Refined assessment of potential evapotranspiration in the Tarim basin". Dr. Huo Wen from the Institute of Desert Meteorology, China Meteorological Administration, is the first author of the paper. This research was supported by the National Natural Science Foundation project Quantitative Separation and Variation of Land-Atmosphere Fluxes in Different Functional Units of Artificial Green Spaces in Desert Areas and the Chinese Academy of Sciences Strategic Priority Research Program, among others.

Original Publication Information: Huo W, Zhi XF, Hu SQ*, Cai WY**, Yang F, Zhou CL, MamtiMin A, He Q, Pan HL, Song MQ, Wen C, Wang Y, Yang XH and Meng L. (2022). Refined assessment of potential evapotranspiration in the Tarim basin. Front. Earth Sci. (IF: 3.661). 10:904129. doi: 10.3389/feart.2022.904129.

Article Link: https://www.frontiersin.org/articles/10.3389/feart.2022.904129/full