New technique measures evaporation globally

 Researchers at Columbia Engineering and Boston University have developed the first method to map evaporation globally using weather stations, which will help scientists evaluate water resource management, assess recent trends of evaporation throughout the globe, and validate surface hydrologic models, in various conditions. The study was published in an online Early Edition of Proceeding of the National Academy of Sciences (PNAS).

“This is the first tine we’ve been able to map evaporation in a consistent way, using concentrate measurement that are available around the world,” said Pierre Gentine, Assistant Professor of earth and environmental engineering at Columbia. “Global measurements of evaporation have been a longstanding and frustrating challenge for the hydrologic community,” says Gentine. “And now, for the first time, we show that simple weather station measurements of air temperature and humidity can be used across the globe to obtain the daily evaporation.”