The effect of climate change on soil moisture

Relevance. Soil moisture is the most important hydro/physical characteristic in the description and calculation of infiltration losses of rain and spring runoff, evaporation. The dynamics of soil moisture is associated with changes in climatic characteristics, and at the same time humidity is a significant climatic component, since it determines the outgoing convective flows of heat and moisture from the land surface into the atmosphere, forming the climate of the planet. Methods. We used the Russia water balance stations many-year observation data to reveal regularities of the soil moisture change under the climate change impact, as well as the physically-grounded mathematical model of vertical heat/moisture/transfer. We have conducted digital experiments on assessment of the impact of all main meteo/factors that influence on the moisture changing dynamics over the 1952–2019 period. Results. From the analysis of experimental data, it follows that in the period from the 1960s to the 1990s, there was a widespread increase in soil moisture in the European part of Russia, both in the summer and autumn seasons. In the subsequent period, and up to the present, the positive trends in the variability of moisture reserves have been replaced by negative ones, or their value has dropped significantly.