Meteorological driving forces of reference evapotranspiration and their trends in California.

Reference evapotranspiration (ETo) is a variable that helps determine atmospheric pressure on living (reference) grass to release water into the atmosphere. For this purpose, four main driving forces: air temperature, air humidity, solar radiation, and wind speed need to be measured over the well-watered reference grass. The relative influence of these driving forces is region and climate-specific, with daily and seasonal variations.

Methane Emission Reductions from the Alternate Wetting and Drying of Rice Fields Detected Using the Eddy Covariance Method.

Rice cultivation contributes 11% of the global 308 Tg CH anthropogenic emissions. The alternate wetting and drying (AWD) irrigation practice can conserve water while reducing CH emissions through the deliberate, periodic introduction of aerobic soil conditions. This paper is the first to measure the impact of AWD on rice field CH emissions using the eddy covariance (EC) method.