Long-term trend and variability of soil moisture over East Asia

The variability of soil moisture over East Asia was analyzed using a long-term data set from the Global Land Data Assimilation System. Overall, a clear decreasing trend occurred over a period of 63 years, with pronounced drying over northeast China, north China, part of Mongolia, and Russia near lake Baikal. Statistical analyses show that decreasing precipitation and global warming have different effects on the decrease in soil moisture. The qualitative analysis and quantitative contributions illustrated that soil drying is driven primarily by decreasing precipitation and is enhanced almost twofold by increasing temperatures. As soil moisture decreases, the positive feedback between soil moisture and temperature may result in future water shortages. Following the Representative Concentration Pathways 8.5 (RCP8.5) and 4.5 (RCP4.5) simulation scenarios of Coupled Model Intercomparison Project phase 5, the model-predicted soil moisture demonstrated a continuously decreasing trend during the 21st century.