Evapotranspiration can be thought of as the amount of water removed from the surface of a gridcell through evaporation (due to temperature, humidity, or radiation) and through transpiration (the process by which plants move water up from their roots and out through their leaves).
Evapotranspiration (ET) can be used to estimate the amount of water the local vegetation needs to remain in equilibrium with the ground water supply. It is particularly useful to compare ET to potential ET to determine the overall deficiency of the gridcell’s water supply (ET is always less than potential ET).
Full Citation
Willmott, Cort J., and Matsuura Kenji (2001): Terrestrial Water Budget Data Archive: Monthly Time Series (1950-1999).
Download Images
Global | Asia | Africa | Europe | North America | Oceania | South America
(All images are provided at a resolution of 1600×1200 pixels)
Download Data
Download a GIS grid of this data (ESRI ArcView Format)
Classification
This dataset can be found in the following categories:
