Examining the Responses of Different Land Types to Drought

Investigator: 
Yiqi Zheng
yiqi.zheng@yale.edu
Advisor: 
Nadine Unger & Ron Smith
Start Date: 
May, 2013
Description: 

Drought is often directly caused by persistent anomalies in large-scale atmospheric circulation patterns. Beyond this, Local feedback may also contribute to the severity and persistence of drought. In particular, land surface processes involving reduced evaporation and humidity associated with dry soils and high temperature probably has a significant effect. This project will examine how different land types respond to drought through atmosphere-vegetation-soil interactions.

Specifically, I will regard the response process as two separate steps:

  1. the drought impact on different land types
  2. the land surface feedback on atmosphere.