2013 Birdsall-Dreiss Lecture: How Do Porous Terrestrial Surfaces Control Evaporation into the Atmosphere?
2013 Birdsall-Dreiss Lecture: How Do Porous Terrestrial Surfaces Control Evaporation into the Atmosphere?
Presented on Wednesday, May 1, 2013
Globally, evaporation consumes about 25 percent of solar energy input and is a key hydrologic driver with approximately 60 percent of terrestrial precipitation returning to the atmosphere via evapotranspiration. Quantifying evaporation is important for assessing changes in hydrologic reservoirs and surface energy balance, as well as other applications. However, evaporation dynamics from porous media is significantly different than from free water surfaces. Implications of the findings for estimates of evaporative losses used in hydrological and climate models will be discussed during this lecture.
Presenter:
Dani Or, Ph.D.
Department of Environmental Systems Science, Institute of Terrestrial Ecosystems, Zurich, Switzerland
Department of Environmental Systems Science, Institute of Terrestrial Ecosystems, Zurich, Switzerland
Dr. Dani Or is a professor of Soil and Terrestrial Environmental Physics and Director of the Institute of Terrestrial Ecosystems in the Department of Environmental Systems Science at the Swiss Federal Institute of Technology Zurich in Switzerland. Or has authored over 170 refereed publications, co-authored a book, and over 270 proceeding papers and abstracts. Or is Editor in Chief of the Vadose Zone Journal, recipient of the Kirkham Soil Physics Award (2001), 2004 Fellow of the Soil Science Society of America, chair of the 2008 Gordon Research Conference on Flow and Transport and 2010 Fellow of the American Geophysical Union.
