Global Assessment Of The Impact Of Irrigation On Land Surface Temperature

Our knowledge of the climatic feedbacks of irrigation is still limited because of high uncertainty of current modeling results and insufficient coverage of in-situ observations. Here, by using satellite observations, we present a global-scale observation-driven assessment of the impact of irrigation on land surface temperature (LST). Irrigation is found to reduce LST, especially in arid regions during warm season. This cooling effect is largely attributed to the irrigation-induced increase in evapotranspiration. Our findings have important implications for future climatic and agricultural researches, under the circumstance of sustaining global warming.