'Paleontological Institute at The University of Kansas'
Abstract
A suite of regional climate model runs was conducted to examine the impacts of mean soil moisture and model resolution on precipitation events in the U.S. Central Plains, and to investigate the relative impacts of energy balance partitioning and net radiation in soil moisture-precipitation feedbacks. Results indicate the presence of a positive feedback between soil moisture and precipitation in the U. S. Central Plains. Energy balance partitioning controls the occurrence of feedbacks, while net radiation was not impacted by mean soil moisture. Spatial scaling properties of modeled fields were examined to determine whether these fields exhibit scale invariance. There is large temporal variability in the scaling coefficients of soil moisture, Bowen ratio and soil temperature. Results imply that scaling characteristics determined from a limited time series of remotely sensed images may not be sufficient for inferring spatial dynamics of soil moisture
