Enhanced soil moisture drying in transitional regions under a warming climate

We analyzed global trends of soil moisture for the period 1948-2010 using the Global Land Data Assimilation System data set. Soil moisture was dominated by negative trends, with pronounced drying over East Asia and the Sahel. Spatial analysis according to climatic region revealed that the most obvious drying occurred over transitional regions between dry and wet climates. The noticeable drying first took place in the humid transitional regions and extended to the dry transitional regions, beginning in the 1980s. The variability of soil moisture was notably related to the changes in precipitation and temperature, but with different roles. For the global average, precipitation had a dominant effect on the variability of soil moisture at interannual to decadal time scales, but temperature was the main cause of the long-term trend of soil moisture on the whole. The enhanced soil drying in the transitional regions was primarily caused by global warming, which is illustrated by regression analysis and the land surface model.