DOI: 10.6078/d1399q
title: Data from: Terrestrial evaporation and global climate: lessons from Northland, a planet with a hemispheric continent

description: Motivated by the hemispheric asymmetry of land distribution on Earth, we
 explore the climate of Northland, a highly idealized planet with a
 Northern Hemisphere continent and a Southern Hemisphere ocean. The climate
 of Northland can be separated into four distinct regions: the Southern
 Hemisphere ocean, the seasonally wet tropics, the mid-latitude desert, and
 the Great Northern Swamp. We evaluate how modifying land surface
 properties on Northland drives changes in temperatures, precipitation
 patterns, the global energy budget, and atmospheric dynamics. We observe a
 surprising response to changes in land-surface evaporation, where
 suppressing terrestrial evaporation in Northland cools both land and
 ocean. In previous studies, suppressing terrestrial evaporation has been
 found to lead to local warming by reducing latent cooling of the land
 surface. However, reduced evaporation can also decrease atmospheric water
 vapor, reducing the strength of the greenhouse effect and leading to
 large-scale cooling. We use a set of idealized climate model simulations
 to show that suppressing terrestrial evaporation over Northern Hemisphere
 continents of varying size can lead to either warming or cooling of the
 land surface, depending on which of these competing effects dominate. We
 find that a combination of total land area and contiguous continent size
 controls the balance between local warming from reduced latent heat flux
 and large-scale cooling from reduced atmospheric water vapor. Finally, we
 demonstrate how terrestrial heat capacity, albedo, and evaporation all
 modulate the location of the ITCZ both over the continent and over the
 ocean.
description: Isca climate model output for the experiments described in the
 paper "Terrestrial evaporation and global climate: lessons from
 Northland, a planet with a hemispheric continent" published in
 Journal of Climate.
description: Each netcdf file contains the monthly mean output of each field
 for the duration of the simulation. Variables are as described in the Isca
 documentation (and noted below), except for: flux_lw is
 the <strong>downard</strong> flux of longwave radiation at the
 surface. mml_lwup is the <strong>upward
 </strong>flux of longwave radiation at  the surface.
 Full time series variable list: bucket_depth  
 -  time-varying soil moisture<br> olr                    - top of
 atmosphere outgoing longwave radiation (positive up) [W/m2]<br>
 t_surf               - surface temperature (radiative skin temperature)
 [K]<br> flux_lhe           - surface evaporation (positive up)
 [W/m2]<br> precipitation    - rain/snow (positive down)<br>
 temp                 - temperature (vertically resolved through
 atmosphere) [K]<br> flux_lw            - Downwards LW
 radiation at the surface. Positive down. [W/m2]. NOT net surface
 LW.<br> ps                     - surface pressure<br> toa_sw 
             - top of atmosphere incoming shortwave radiation, positive
 down [W/m2]<br> flux_sw            - net surface flux of shortwave
 radiation, positive down [W/m2]<br> rh                      -
 relative humidity<br> vcomp_height  - poleward transport of
 potential energy<br> flux_t               - surface sensible heat
 flux, positive up [W/m2]<br> sphum              - specific humidity
 [kg/kg]<br> vcomp_temp    - poleward transport of heat
 (dry)<br> mml_flus          - surface upwards (emitted) longwave
 radiation [W/m2]<br> sphum_v          - poleward transport of
 moisture