Abstract (from http://www.nature.com/articles/srep15956): Recent studies showed that anomalous dry conditions and limited moisture supply roughly between 1998 and 2008, especially in the Southern Hemisphere, led to reduced vegetation productivity and ceased growth in land evapotranspiration (ET). However, natural variability of Earth’s climate system can degrade capabilities for identifying climate trends. Here we produced a long-term (1982–2013) remote sensing based land ET record and investigated multidecadal changes in global ET and underlying causes. The ET record shows a significant upward global trend of 0.88 mm yr−2 ( P < 0.001) over the 32-year period, mainly driven by vegetation greening (0.018% per year; P < 0.001) and rising [...]
