FW: Neglecting land–atmosphere feedbacks overestimates climate-driven increases in evapotranspiration

[Tom Goreau]

 

 

From: Tom Goreau <gor...@globalcoral.org>
Date: Tuesday, October 7, 2025 at 05:25
To: Healthy Climate Alliance <healthy-clim...@googlegroups.com>, EcoRestoration Alliance <ecorestorat...@googlegroups.com>
Cc: Anastassia Makarieva <ammak...@gmail.com>
Subject: Neglecting land–atmosphere feedbacks overestimates climate-driven increases in evapotranspiration

• Article

• Published: 11 September 2025

Neglecting land–atmosphere feedbacks overestimates climate-driven increases in evapotranspiration

• Sha Zhou & 
• Bofu Yu 

Nature Climate Change volume 15, pages1099–1106 (2025)Cite this article

• 2796 Accesses
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Abstract

Accurate projections of evapotranspiration (ET) are crucial for understanding hydrological responses to climate warming, which remain highly uncertain because of complex land–atmosphere interactions. Here we develop a theoretical framework to disentangle these interactions, achieving highly consistent ET projections between offline and coupled models. Our findings show that previous estimates of climate-driven ET increases have been exaggerated, primarily due to a substantial overestimation of atmospheric evaporative demand. Notably, the atmospheric conditions often assumed to drive ET are, in fact, responses to ET changes induced by soil moisture and vegetation dynamics. Neglecting these land–atmosphere feedbacks has led to a 25–39% overestimation of climate-driven global ET increases and a 77–121% exaggeration of the negative contribution from land surface changes. These biases have caused large discrepancies in hydrological projections and attributions between offline and coupled models, underscoring the importance of accurately representing land–atmosphere interactions to improve the reliability and consistency of future hydrological projections.

 

[rob de laet]

Hello Tom, thanks for sharing. 

At first glance this study supports our position that vegetation and soil moisture drive the climate system rather than merely respond to it, with the ET champions of the world, the tropical rainforests the most powerful drivers of the climate system. It confirms that land–atmosphere feedbacks and evapotranspiration dynamics are systematically underestimated, reinforcing why our “Cooling the Climate” approach focuses on restoring the biosphere’s hydrological engine as the key to planetary cooling. Will try to get the full paper, so this is a very preliminary assessment, 

Warm regard, 

Rob de Laet 

Project Lead Cooling the Climate

Member of the EcoRestoration Alliance

Fellow of Global Evergreening Alliance

Fellow fo the Schumacher Institute

Co-founder of Senang Eco Services

WhatsApp: +55 71 992617846

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