Researchers from ETH Zurich and other universities found evidence that expanding irrigation has dampened anthropogenic warming during hot days, with particularly strong effects over South Asia.
Researchers from ETH Zurich and other universities found evidence that expanding irrigation has dampened anthropogenic warming during hot days, with particularly strong effects over South Asia.
Large-scale irrigation is one of the land management practices with the largest effect on climate conditions – and especially hot extremes – in various regions across the globe. Yet how the climatic effects of irrigation compare to those of global warming is largely unknown.
In a new study published in Nature Communications, an international team of researchers under the lead of Sonia Seneviratne, professor for Land-Climate Dynamics at ETH Zurich, has examined the influence of irrigation more closely. They used observational data and global climate simulations to isolate the climatic effects of irrigation from the warming induced by other natural and human climatic drivers, predominantly greenhouse gas emissions.
Read more at ETH Zurich
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