Delworth, T., and S. Manabe, 1993: Climate variability and land-surface
processes. Advances in Water Resources, 16, 3-20.
Abstract: The coupled ocean-atmosphere-land climate system is characterized
by substantial amounts of variability on a wide range of spatial and temporal
scales. This natural variability of climate increases the difficulty of
detecting climate change attributable to increasing greenhouse gas concentrations.
A key issue in climate research is obtaining a better description of this
variability and the physical mechanisms responsible for it. One of the
important physical processes contributing to this variability is the interaction
between the land surface and the atmosphere. Through its effect on the
surface energy flux components, the land surface can exert a pronounced
effect on the variability of the atmosphere. The potential importance of
such interactions for climate variability is examined through the use of
numerical modeling studies. The physical mechanisms governing the time
scales of soil moisture variability in the model are outlined, and observational
evidence is presented supporting this analysis. In addition, it is shown
that interactions between soil wetness and the atmosphere can both increase
the total variability of the atmosphere and lengthen the time scales of
near-surface atmospheric fluctuations.