This book is a landmark in the study of two key ecosystems which until recently have received little attention. How these systems will respond to global climate change and how they might ameliorate (of contribute) to climate change in the future was the subject of this SCOPE project. The project had three objectives: firstly, a critical assessment of our understanding of the effects of climate on production and decomposition processes in coniferous forests and grasslands, temperate and tropical; secondly, a review of exact forest and grassland ecosystem models, and an evaluation of production decay processes; and thirdly, the development of a foundation for the design of diagnostic and predictive models to describe the effects of climate change. This important work will serve as a basis for information and research in this area.
The Carbon Budget of Boreal Forests: Reducing the Uncertainty; Carbon Budget: Temperate Coniferous Forests; The Carbon Budget of Tropical Savannahs, Woodlands and Grasslands; Carbon Budgets of Temperate Grasslands and the Effects of Global Change; Photosynthesis, Rising Atmosphere CO2 Concentration and Climate Change; Rising Atmospheric CO2 and Plant Respiration; Carbon and Nutrient Allocation in Terrestrial Ecosystems; Elevated CO2, Litter Quality and Decomposition; Ecosystem Physiology - Soil Organic Matter; Global Grassland Ecosystem Modelling: Development and Test of Ecosystem Models for Grassland Systems; Impact of Climate and Atmospheric CO2 Changes on Grasslands of the World; Comparing Models of Ecosystem Function for Temperate Coniferous Forests I. - Model Description and Validation; Comparing Models of Ecosystem Function for Temperate Conifer Forests II. - Simulations of the Effects of Climate Change; Global Climate Change and Carbon Cycling in Grasslands and Conifer Forests; Prediction of Global Biome Distribution Using Bioclimatic Equilibrium Models.