Multi‐Decadal Dynamics of Global Rainfall Interception and Their Drivers

Abstract Rainfall interception loss ( E i ) is a difficult to study and poorly understood flux compared to transpiration and soil evaporation. The influence of climate and vegetation on E i is not well known at continental‐to‐global and annual‐to‐decadal scales. Here, we use a long‐term multi‐product approach to examine the global trends in E i , and further utilize a recently developed and validated dataset to isolate the relative contributions of precipitation, vegetation and evaporative demand. At decadal timescales, increasing E i is largely driven by global vegetation greening through an increase in the intercepting surface and storage capacity, while its inter‐annual variations are mainly controlled by changes in precipitation, largely related to El Niño/Southern Oscillation. Increasing evaporative demand, driven by atmospheric warming, also positively contributes to the global rise in E i . This study provides new perspectives for further understanding the impacts of climate change on the terrestrial hydrological cycle.