Circulation-induced warm and dry conditions amplify PD-versus-NAT thermodynamic soil-moisture and VPD drying, whereas cold and wet condition
Circulation-induced warm and dry conditions amplify PD-versus-NAT thermodynamic soil-moisture and VPD drying, whereas cold and wet conditions and more frequent heavy precipitation mitigate it.
Paper reconstruction — Dunkl, Bastos & Sippel (2026), European summer drying
Under constant PD and NAT forcing, the thermodynamic soil-moisture difference varies substantially from year to year, ranging from −0.39 to −1.00 mm around a −0.72 mm JJA mean difference.
For every millimetre of negative circulation-induced soil-moisture anomaly, PD has an additional 0.08 mm of drying relative to NAT, an 8% positive amplification effect.
Across the domain, circulation-induced summer soil-moisture conditions and the thermodynamic soil-moisture component (PD–NAT) have a significant positive correlation of 0.62.
Even with constant forcing in PD and NAT, the thermodynamic soil-moisture difference varies substantially from year to year: its mean is −0.72 mm, with annual differences from −0.39 to −1.00 mm.