PNNL

Abstract

An irrigation scheme is implemented in the Weather Research and Forecasting (WRF) model to investigate irrigation impacts over the Continental US (CONUS). Four major irrigated regions and two downwind regions were chosen to understand irrigation impacts over different climate regimes with a focus on irrigation-induced changes on the water and energy cycles. The Dynamic Recycling Model (DRM) is employed to quantify precipitation induced by irrigation and the precipitation recycling ratios over each irrigated region. With the irrigation scheme, WRF improves the simulated precipitation, surface skin temperature, and energy fluxes compared to reference datasets. For the energy cycle, irrigation increases surface available energy, highlighted by reduced outgoing longwave radiation due to a cooler surface. The increased surface available energy increases latent heat flux over the irrigated regions along with reduced sensible heat flux. Irrigation also intensifies the hydrological cycle over the irrigated regions, reflected by the increased precipitation, evapotranspiration, recycling ratio, and moisture export. Downwind regions exhibit increased precipitation and evaporation, decreased moisture flux divergence, and less consistent variations in recycling ratio. The precipitation increases over the irrigated regions can be partly explained by the more unstable low-level conditions, while reduced net moisture export is coincident with the precipitation increases over the downwind regions.