Seminar: Sarosh Alam Ghausi

In this talk, I will focus on the role of thermodynamics in mediating the interactions between hydrologic cycling and surface temperatures. I will specifically answer the questions how much clouds and evaporation affect temperatures across regions and periods and how do these underlying controls change for different timescales. I will also show how changes in surface temperatures alter the rate of hydrologic cycling and how can we estimate these sensitivities using observations, despite the strong covariation between observed temperature and rainfall events. To do this, I will use a thermodynamic systems approach where I visualize hydrological processes as a result of energy being converted from one phase to another and being transported from one place to another. I then constrain this energy conversion and transport by explicitly accounting for thermodynamic limits on surface-atmosphere exchange. I will show from where do these limits come from and what insights they give us for the land-atmosphere interactions.