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Changing pathways of soil moisture loss, either directly from soil (evaporation) or indirectly through vegetation (transpiration), are an indicator of ecosystem and land hydrological cycle responses to the changing climate. Based on the ratio of transpiration to evaporation, this paper investigates soil moisture loss pathway changes across China using five reanalysis-type datasets for the past and Coupled Model Intercomparison Project Phase 6 (CMIP6) climate projections for the future. The results show that across China, the ratio of vegetation transpiration to soil evaporation has generally increased across vegetated land areas, except in grasslands and croplands in north China. During 1981–2014, there was an increase by 51.4 percentage points (pps, p < 0.01) on average according to the reanalyses and by 42.7 pps according to 13 CMIP6 models. The CMIP6 projections suggest that the holistic increasing trend will continue into the twenty-first century at a rate of 40.8 pps for SSP585, 30.6 pps for SSP245, and −1.0 pps for SSP126 shared socioeconomic pathway scenarios for the period 2015–2100 relative to 1981–2014. Major contributions come from the increases in vegetation transpiration over the semiarid and subhumid grasslands, croplands, and forestlands under the influence of increasing temperatures and prolonged growing seasons (with twin peaks in May and October). The future increasing vegetation transpiration ratio in soil moisture loss implies the potential of regional greening across China under global warming and the risks of intensifying land surface dryness and altering the coupling between soil moisture and climate in regions with water-limited ecosystems. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Variability in soil moisture has implications for regional terrestrial environments under a warming climate. This paper focuses on the spatiotemporal variability in the intra-annual persistence of soil moisture in China using the fifthgeneration reanalysis dataset by the European Centre for Medium-Range Weather Forecasts for the period 1979-2018. The results show that in China, the mean intra-annual persistence in the humid to arid zones increased from 60 to 115 days in the lower layer but decreased from 19 to 13 days and from 25 to 14 days in the upper and root layers, respectively. However, these changes were strongly attenuated in extremely dry and wet regions due to the scarcity of soil moisture anomalies. Large changes in persistence occurred in the lower soil layer in dryland areas, with a mean difference of up to 40 days between the 2010s and the 1980s. Overall increasing trends dominated the large-scale spatial features, despite regional decreases in the eastern arid zone and the North and Northeast China plains. In the root layer, the two plains experienced an expanded decrease while on the Tibetan Plateau it was dominated by decadal variability. These contrasting changes between the lower and root layers along the periphery of the transition zone was a reflection of the enhanced soil hydrological cycle in the root layer. The enhanced persistence in drylands lower layer is an indication of the intensified impacts of soil moisture anomalies (e.g., droughts) on terrestrial water cycle. These findings may help the understanding of climate change impacts on terrestrial environments. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]