How does vegetation influence drought variability and predictability?

While the drought impact on vegetation is well known, the impact of vegetation on drought is still debatable.  The influence of vegetation on rainfall has been hypothesized for centuries and supported by some numerical model simulations.  However, observational evidence is still not compelling enough to support such hypothesis, in large part due to strong coupling between rainfall and vegetation.  In this seminar, Dr. Fu will report her effort to address this challenge through a mechanistic approach, namely, to diagnose and understand how does vegetation-regulated evapotranspiration influence the fundamental processes that control the onset and persistence of the droughts in different climate-vegetation regimes using observations, with focus on the South and North American continents. In particular, she will present results to show how vegetation regulates the onset of warm season rainfall, and how vegetation response to a drought provides an inter-seasonal memory for drought, and whether such inter-seasonal memory can be used to improve drought prediction with a 3-6 month lead-time.

Speaker: Dr. Rong Fu