Bauer et al. (2025) An Analytical Model for the Influence of Soil Moisture on Temperature Extremes in the Midlatitudes

⚠️ Warning: This summary was generated from the abstract only, as the full text was not available.

Identification

• Journal: Journal of Climate
• Year: 2025
• Date: 2025-11-11
• Authors: Adam Michael Bauer, Lucas R. Vargas Zeppetello, Cristian Proistosescu
• DOI: 10.1175/jcli-d-24-0624.1

Research Groups

Not available from the provided abstract.

Short Summary

This paper develops a theoretical framework and analytical models to demonstrate that low soil moisture nonlinearly controls the frequency of midlatitude temperature extremes by slowly altering the land surface climate state, rather than directly modifying atmospheric variability.

Objective

• To provide evidence for and develop a theoretical framework to understand the association between low soil moisture and extremely high temperatures in the midlatitudes, and to quantify the influence of soil moisture on temperature variability.

Study Configuration

• Spatial Scale: Midlatitudes
• Temporal Scale: Focuses on the frequency of temperature extremes and slow alterations of the land surface climate state by soil moisture fluctuations.

Methodology and Data

• Models used:
  • Theoretical framework based on energy and mass conservation at the land surface.
  • Nonlinear diagnostic equation for temperature response to soil moisture variations.
  • Dynamical Hasselmann-like model for soil moisture variations.
• Data sources:
  • Theoretical derivations and analytical solutions.
  • Input for the Hasselmann-like model is stochastic precipitation.

Main Results

• A nonlinear relationship between soil moisture and temperature is derived from energy and mass conservation principles.
• Soil moisture fluctuations control the frequency of temperature extremes by slowly altering the land surface climate state, rather than by altering atmospheric variability itself.
• A diagnostic model quantifies the atmospheric anomaly required to create a heat wave, conditional on the underlying soil moisture.
• Analytical solutions for the statistical moments of soil moisture are derived by forcing the Hasselmann-like model with stochastic precipitation.
• The strength of this nonlinearity dictates the heterogeneous influence of soil moisture on temperature extremes.

Contributions

• Provides a theoretical framework and analytical, minimal complexity models to understand the contribution of various factors to midlatitude heat waves.
• Introduces a novel nonlinear diagnostic equation for surface temperatures in terms of surface soil moisture content.
• Presents a novel nonlinear Hasselmann-like model for the soil moisture response to precipitation.
• Quantifies how soil moisture controls the frequency of temperature extremes by altering the land surface climate state.
• Offers a conceptual understanding of how "fast" atmospheric variability and "slow" land hydrology jointly contribute to temperature extremes in the midlatitudes.

Funding

Not available from the provided abstract.

Citation

@article{Bauer2025Analytical,
  author = {Bauer, Adam Michael and Zeppetello, Lucas R. Vargas and Proistosescu, Cristian},
  title = {An Analytical Model for the Influence of Soil Moisture on Temperature Extremes in the Midlatitudes},
  journal = {Journal of Climate},
  year = {2025},
  doi = {10.1175/jcli-d-24-0624.1},
  url = {https://doi.org/10.1175/jcli-d-24-0624.1}
}