RESEARCH ARTICLE Divergent Regional Climate Consequences of Maintaining 10.1029/2019JD031814 Current Irrigation Rates in the 21st Century 1,2 3 4 5 Key Points: Benjamin I. Cook , Sonali Shukla McDermid , Michael J. Puma , A. Park Williams , • Using a climate model ensemble, Richard Seager2 , Maxwell Kelley1, Larissa Nazarenko1 , and Igor Aleinov1 we evaluate irrigation effects on projected climate change-forced 1NASA Goddard Institute for Space Studies, New York, NY, USA, 2Ocean and Climate Physics, Lamont-Doherty Earth temperature and soil moisture 3 trends Observatory, Palisades, NY, USA, Department of Environmental Studies, New York University, New York, NY, USA, 4 5 • Maintaining current irrigation Center for Climate Systems Research, Columbia University, New York, NY, USA, Tree-Ring Lab, Lamont-Doherty continues moderating projected Earth Observatory, Palisades, NY, USA 21st century warming and drying, even as greenhouse gas forcing increases There is strong evidence that the expansion and intensification of irrigation over the • The magnitude of irrigation effects Abstract varies strongly by region, however, twentieth century has affected climate in many regions. However, it remains uncertain if these irrigation and depends heavily on the effects, including buffered warming trends, will weaken or persist under future climate change conditions. background evaporative regime Using a 20-member climate model ensemble simulation, we demonstrate that irrigation will continue to attenuate greenhouse gas-forced warming and soil moisture drying in many regions over the 21st century, Correspondence to: including Mexico, the Mediterranean, Southwest Asia, and China. Notably, this occurs without any further B. I. Cook, expansion or intensification of irrigation beyond current levels, even while greenhouse gas forcing steadily
[email protected] increases.