Publications

L.I. Tang, K.A. McColl. Radiative-convective equilibrium over an idealized land surface with fixed soil moisture. Submitted.

Y. Fan, K.A. McColl. Strong radiative effects on future moist heat stress. Submitted.

S.A. Ghausi, K.A. McColl, E. Zehe, A. Kleidon. Explaining observed short-term variations and long-term trends in the diurnal air temperature range. Submitted.

Commentary

K.A. McColl, M.L. Roderick, A. Berg, J. Scheff. The terrestrial water cycle in a warming world (invited). Nature Climate Change, 2022, vol. 12, iss. 7. [link][pdf]

Peer-Reviewed Journal Papers

52. Y. Cheng, K.A. McColl. Unexpected warming from land radiative management. Geophysical Research Letters, in press.
53. M. Byrne, G. Hegerl, J. Scheff, O. Adam, A. Berg, M. Biasutti, S. Bordoni, A. Dai, R. Geen, M. Henry, S. Hill, C. Hohenegger, V. Humphrey, M. Joshi, A. Konings, M. Lague, F. Lambert, F. Lehner, J. Mankin, K.A. McColl, K. McKinnon, A. Pendergrass, A. Schurer, M. Scott, D. Sexton, S. Sherwood, L. Vargas Zeppetello, Y. Zhang, M. Pietschnig, L. Schmidt. Theory and the future of land-climate science. Nature Geoscience, in press.
54. D. Short Gianotti, K. A. McColl, A. Feldman, X. Xu, D. Entekhabi. Two sub-annual time-scales and coupling modes for terrestrial water and carbon cycles. Global Change Biology, in press.
55. M. Rahmati and 16 co-authors (including K.A. McColl). Soil moisture memory: state-of-the-art and the way forward. Reviews of Geophysics, in press.
56. G. Wang, R. Fu, Y. Zhuang, P.A. Dirmeyer, J.A. Santanello, Guiling Wang, K. Yang, K.A. McColl. Influence of lower tropospheric moisture on local soil moisture-precipitation feedback over the U.S. Southern Great Plains. Atmospheric Chemistry and Physics, in press.
57. K. Yang, J. Sun, H. Lu, K.A. McColl, Y. Jiang, Q. He. Enhanced surface water-energy coupling on the Tibetan Plateau over the past six decades (1960-2020). Fundamental Research, in press.
58. K.A. McColl, L.I. Tang. An analytic theory of near-surface relative humidity over land. Journal of Climate, 2024, vol. 37, iss. 4. [link][pdf]
59. L.R. Vargas Zeppetello, K.A. McColl, J.A. Bernau, B.B. Bowen, L.I. Tang, N.M. Holbrook, P. Gentine, P. Huybers. Apparent surface conductance sensitivity to vapor pressure deficit in the absence of plants. Nature Water, 2023. [link][pdf]
    • Article in the Harvard Gazette.
60. Y. Cheng, Z. Hu, K.A. McColl. Anomalously darker land surfaces become wetter due to mesoscale circulations. Geophysical Research Letters, 2023, vol. 50, iss. 17. [link][pdf]
61. L.I. Tang, K.A. McColl. An observational, irrigation-sensitive agricultural drought record from weather data. Journal of Hydrometeorology, 2023, vol. 24, iss. 11. [link][pdf]
62. Z. Yang, D. Ryu, M.-H. Lo, M.C. Peel, S.Y. Narsey, K.A. McColl. Negligible impact on precipitation from a permanent inland lake in central Australia. Geophysical Research Letters, 2023, vol. 50, iss. 16. [link][pdf]
    • Article in The Conversation.
63. Y. Cheng, K.A. McColl. Thermally direct mesoscale circulations caused by land surface roughness anomalies. Geophysical Research Letters, 2023, vol. 50, iss. 16. [link][pdf]
64. A.F. Feldman, D.J. Short Gianotti, J. Dong, R. Akbar, W.T. Crow, K.A. McColl, A.G. Konings, J.B. Nippert, S.J. Tumber-Davila, N.M. Holbrook, F.E. Rockwell, R.L. Scott, R.H. Reichle, A. Chatterjee, J. Joiner, B. Poulter, D. Entekhabi. Remotely sensed soil moisture can capture dynamics relevant to plant water uptake. Water Resources Research, 2023, vol. 59, iss. 2. [link][pdf]
65. D. Qiao, Z. Li, J. Zeng, S. Liang, K.A. McColl, H. Bi, J. Zhou, P. Zhang. Uncertainty characterization of ground-based, satellite and reanalysis snow depth products using extended triple collocation. Water Resources Research, 2022, vol. 58, iss. 4. [link][pdf]
66. M.O. Stahl, K.A. McColl. The seasonal cycle of surface soil moisture. Journal of Climate, 2022, vol. 35, iss. 15. [link][pdf]
    • An interactive map of surface soil moisture seasonal cycle regimes, created by M.O. Stahl.
67. Y. Cheng, P.W. Chan, X. Wei, Z. Hu, Z. Kuang, K.A. McColl. Soil moisture control of precipitation re-evaporation over a heterogeneous land surface. Journal of the Atmospheric Sciences, 2021, vol. 78, iss. 10. [link][pdf]
68. A. Berg, K.A. McColl. No projected global drylands expansion under greenhouse warming. Nature Climate Change, 2021. [link][pdf]
    • Article in Carbon Brief. Press release.
69. S. Chen, K.A. McColl, A. Berg, Y. Huang. Surface flux equilibrium estimates of evapotranspiration at large spatial scales. Journal of Hydrometeorology, 2021, vol. 22, iss. 4. [link][pdf]
70. J. Sun, K.A. McColl, Y. Wang, A.J. Rigden, H. Lu, K. Yang, Y. Li, J.A. Santanello. Global evaluation of terrestrial near-surface air temperature and specific humidity retrievals from the Atmospheric Infrared Sounder (AIRS). Remote Sensing of Environment, 2021, vol. 252. [link][pdf] 
71. A.J. Rigden, R.S. Powell, A. Trevino, K.A. McColl, P.J. Huybers. Microwave retrievals of soil moisture improve grassland wildfire predictions. Geophysical Research Letters, 2020, vol. 47, iss. 23. [link][pdf] 
72. A. Gruber, G. De Lannoy, C. Albergel, A. Al-Yaari, L.Brocca, J.-C. Calvet, A. Colliander, M. Cosh, W. Crow, W. Dorigo, C. Draper, M. Hirschi, Y. Kerr, A. Konings, W. Lahoz, K.A. McColl, C. Montzka, J. Munoz-Sabater, J. Peng, R. Reichle, P. Richaume, C. Rudiger, T. Scanlon, R. van der Schalie, W. Wagner. Validation practices for satellite soil moisture products: What are the errors? Remote Sensing of Environment, 2020, vol. 244. [link][pdf]
73. K.A. McColl. Practical and theoretical benefits of an alternative to the Penman-Monteith evapotranspiration equation. Water Resources Research, 2020, vol. 56, iss. 6. [link][pdf][code]
74. K.A. McColl, A.J. Rigden. Emergent simplicity of continental evapotranspiration. Geophysical Research Letters, 2020, vol. 47, iss. 6. [link][pdf]
75. D.J. Short Gianotti, G.D. Salvucci, R. Akbar, K.A. McColl, R. Cuenca, D. Entekhabi. Landscape water storage and subsurface correlation from satellite surface soil moisture and precipitation observations. Water Resources Research, 2020, vol. 55, iss. 11, pp. 9111-9132. [link][pdf]
76. K.A. McColl, G.D. Salvucci, P. Gentine. Surface flux equilibrium theory explains an empirical estimate of water-limited daily evapotranspiration. Journal of Advances in Modeling Earth Systems, 2019, vol. 11, iss. 7, pp. 2036-2049. [link][pdf]
77. K.A. McColl*, Q. He*, H. Lu, D. Entekhabi. Short-term and long-term surface soil moisture memory time scales are spatially anti-correlated at global scales. Journal of Hydrometeorology, 2019, vol. 20, iss. 6, pp. 1165-1182. *contributed equally. [link][pdf]
78. A. Feldman, D. Short Gianotti, A.G. Konings, K.A. McColl, R. Akbar, G.D. Salvucci, D. Entekhabi. Moisture pulse-reserve in the soil-plant continuum observed across biomes. Nature Plants, 2018, vol. 4, iss. 12, pp. 1026-1033. [link][pdf]
79. Q. Li, P. Gentine, J.P. Mellado, K.A. McColl. Implications of non-local transport and conditionally-averaged statistics on Monin-Obukhov Similarity Theory and Townsend’s attached eddy hypothesis. Journal of the Atmospheric Sciences, 2018, vol. 75, iss. 10, pp. 3403-3431. [link][pdf]
80. T. Jagdhuber, A.G. Konings, K.A. McColl, S.H. Alemohammad, N. Das, C. Montzka, M. Link, R. Akbar, D. Entekhabi. Physics-based modeling of active and passive microwave covariations over vegetated surfaces. IEEE Transactions on Geoscience and Remote Sensing, 2018. [link][pdf]
81. R. Akbar, D. Short Gianotti, K.A. McColl, E. Haghighi, D. Entekhabi. Estimation of landscape soil water losses from satellite observations of soil moisture. Journal of Hydrometeorology, 2018, vol. 19, iss. 5, pp. 871-889. [link][pdf]
82. R. Akbar, D. Short Gianotti, K.A. McColl, E. Haghighi, G.D. Salvucci, D. Entekhabi. Hydrological storage length scales represented by remote sensing estimates of soil moisture and precipitation. Water Resources Research, vol. 54, iss. 33, pp. 1476-1492 [link][pdf].
83. D. Whittleston, K.A. McColl, D. Entekhabi. Multimodel future projections of wintertime North Atlantic and North Pacific tropospheric jets: A Bayesian analysis. Journal of Climate, 2018, vol. 31, pp. 2533-2545 [link][pdf].
84. H. Lyu*, K.A. McColl*, X. Li, C. Derksen, A. Berg, T.A. Black, E. Euskirchen, M. Loranty, J. Pulliainen, K. Rautiainen, T. Rowlandson, A. Roy, A. Royer, A. Langlois, J. Stephens, H. Lu, D. Entekhabi. Validation of the SMAP freeze/thaw product using categorical triple collocation. Remote Sensing of Environment, 2018, vol. 205, pp. 329-337. *contributed equally [link][pdf]
85. K. Rotzer, C. Montzka, D. Entekhabi, A.G. Konings, K.A. McColl, M. Piles, H. Vereecken. Relationship between vegetation microwave optical depth and cross-polarized backscatter from multi-year Aquarius observations. IEEE Journal of Selected Topics in Applied Earth Observations and Remote Sensing, 2017, vol. 10, iss. 10, pp. 4493-4503. [link][pdf]
86. K.A. McColl, C.C. van Heerwaarden, G.G. Katul, P. Gentine, D. Entekhabi. Role of large eddies in the breakdown of the Reynolds analogy in an idealized unstable atmospheric surface layer. Quarterly Journal of the Royal Meteorological Society, 2017, vol. 143, iss. 706, pp. 2182-2197. [link][pdf]
87. K.A. McColl*, W. Wang*, B. Peng, R. Akbar, D. Short Gianotti, H. Lu, M. Pan, D. Entekhabi. Global characterization of surface soil moisture drydowns. Geophysical Research Letters, 2017, vol. 44, iss. 8. *contributed equally [link][pdf][data]
88. K.A. McColl, S.H. Alemohammad, R. Akbar, A.G. Konings, S. Yueh, D. Entekhabi. The global distribution and dynamics of surface soil moisture. Nature Geoscience, 2017, vol. 10, no. 2. [link][pdf]
    • Featured in MIT News [link]
89. K.A. McColl, G.G. Katul, P. Gentine, D. Entekhabi. Mean-velocity profile of smooth channel flow explained by a cospectral budget model with wall-blockage. Physics of Fluids, 2016, vol. 28, iss. 3. [link] [pdf]
90. C.A. Bruscantini, A.G. Konings, P. Narvekar, K.A. McColl, D. Entekhabi, F.M. Grings, H. Karszenbaum. L-band radar soil moisture retrieval without ancillary information. IEEE Journal of Selected Topics in Applied Earth Observations and Remote Sensing, 2016, vol. 8, no. 12, pp. 5526-5540. [link][pdf]
91. K.A. McColl, A. Roy, C. Derksen, A.G. Konings, S.H. Alemohammad, D. Entekhabi. Triple collocation for binary and categorical variables: application to validating landscape freeze/thaw retrievals. Remote Sensing of Environment, 2016, vol. 176, pp. 31-42. [link] [pdf] [code]
92. A.G. Konings, M. Piles, K. Rotzer, K.A. McColl, S.K. Chan, D. Entekhabi. Vegetation optical depth and albedo retrieval using time series of dual-polarized L-band radiometer observations. Remote Sensing of Environment, 2016, vol. 172, pp. 178-189. [link] [pdf]
93. S.H. Alemohammad, K.A. McColl, A.G. Konings, D. Entekhabi, A. Stoffelen. Characterization of precipitation product errors across the United States using multiplicative triple collocation. Hydrology and Earth System Sciences, 2015, vol. 19, pp. 3489-3503. [link] [pdf]
94. M. Piles, K.A. McColl, D. Entekhabi, N. Das, M. Pablos. Sensitivity of Aquarius active and passive measurements to surface characteristics over land. IEEE Transactions on Geoscience and Remote Sensing, 2015, vol. 53, iss. 8, pp. 4700-4711. [link] [pdf]
95. A.G. Konings, K.A. McColl, M. Piles, D. Entekhabi. How many parameters can be maximally estimated from a set of measurements? IEEE Geoscience and Remote Sensing Letters, 2015, vol. 12, iss. 5, pp. 1081-1085. [link] [pdf]
96. K.A. McColl, J. Vogelzang, A.G. Konings, D. Entekhabi, M. Piles, A. Stoffelen. Extended Triple Collocation: estimating errors and correlation coefficients with respect to an unknown target. Geophysical Research Letters, 2014, vol. 41, iss. 17. [link] [pdf] [code]
97. K.A. McColl, D. Entekhabi, M. Piles. Uncertainty analysis of soil moisture and vegetation indices using Aquarius scatterometer observations. IEEE Transactions on Geoscience and Remote Sensing, 2014, vol. 52, iss. 7, pp. 4259-4272. [link] [pdf]
98. K.A. McColl, D. Ryu, V. Matic, J.P. Walker, J. Costelloe, C. Rudiger. Soil salinity impacts on L-band remote sensing of soil moisture. IEEE Geoscience and Remote Sensing Letters, 2012, vol. 9, iss. 2, pp 262-266. [link] [pdf]
99. M.B. Renfree, A.T. Papenfuss et al. (including K.A. McColl). Genome sequence of an Australian kangaroo, Macropus eugenii, provides insight into the evolution of mammalian reproduction and development. Genome Biology, 2011, vol. 12, iss. 8.
100. A.J. Pask, A.T. Papenfuss, E.I. Ager, K.A. McColl, T.P. Speed, M.B. Renfree. Analysis of the platypus genome suggests a transposon origin for mammalian imprinting. Genome Biology, 2009, vol. 10, iss. 1.
101. K. Belov, C.E. Sanderson, J.E. Deakin, E.S.W. Wong, D. Assange, K.A. McColl, A. Gout, B. De Bono, T.P. Speed, J. Trowsdale, A.T. Papenfuss. Characterization of the opossum immune genome provides insights into the evolution of the mammalian immune system. Genome Research, 2007, vol. 17, pp 982-91

Peer-Reviewed Conference Papers

K.A. McColl. Spectral modeling of an idealized atmospheric surface layer. Ph.D. Thesis, Department of Civil and Environmental Engineering, Massachusetts Institute of Technology, 2017.

K.A. McColl. Soil salinity impacts on L-band microwave remote sensing of soil moisture and implications for future satellite missions. Honours Thesis, Department of Infrastructure Engineering, The University of Melbourne, 2009.