Geoscience Reference
In-Depth Information
Perspectives in Modelling Climate-Hydrology
Interactions
Stefan Hagemann
•
Tanja Blome
•
Fahad Saeed
•
Tobias Stacke
Received: 12 December 2012 / Accepted: 18 June 2013 / Published online: 2 August 2013
Springer Science+Business Media Dordrecht 2013
Abstract Various land-atmosphere coupling mechanisms exist that may lead to large-
scale impacts on climate and hydrology. Some of them are still less understood and not
adequately represented in state-of-the-art climate modelling. But, as the current generation
of climate models enables consideration and implementation of important coupling pro-
cesses, the present study provides perspectives for the modelling of relevant climate-
hydrology interactions. On a more short-term perspective, these comprise anthropogenic
land use and especially irrigation, which has been shown that it may even affect remote
regions. On a long-term perspective, the coupling of hydrology to carbon cycle and veg-
etation becomes important, specifically the dynamics of permafrost and wetlands. Here, we
present a review of current knowledge combined with some exemplary studies from a
large-scale point of view. Therefore, we focus on climate-hydrology interactions that are
relevant on scales utilized in the current or forthcoming global and regional climate
modelling exercises.
Keywords Irrigation
Land atmosphere feedbacks
Land-use impacts
Modelling perspectives
Permafrost and wetland dynamics
1 Introduction
The hydrological cycle plays a prominent role within the Earth system and is crucially
important to life on Earth including the human society. Thus, the current state of the
hydrological cycle and its future development are key issues in environmental research. In
