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Assessing Impacts of Climate Change on Vegetation Using Climate Classification Systems

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Vegetation Dynamics & Global Change

Abstract

In response to the growing public and scientific concern about global environmental change and its impact on terrestrial ecosystems, a demand for spatially explicit predictions of potential vegetation under increased atmospheric CO2 has appeared (Prentice et al. 1989). Maps based on such predictions are expected to serve as an indication of likely impacts of global warming on natural vegetation (Busby 1988), wildlife (Arnold 1988) and agriculture and forestry (Parry et al. 1988; Graetz et al. 1988). Other important issues which could be addressed are likely changes in biodiversity, as well as levels in and feedback mechanisms between the sources and sinks of the global carbon cycle (Prentice and Fung 1990; Adams et al. 1990).

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Authors
  1. Wolfgang P. Cramer
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  2. Rik Leemans
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Editors and Affiliations

  1. U.S. Environmental Protection Agency, ERL-C, 200 SW 35 Street, Corvallis, OR, 97333, USA

    Allen M. Solomon

  2. Department of Environmental Sciences, Clark Hall, University of Virginia, Charlottesville, VA, 22903, USA

    Herman H. Shugart

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Cramer, W.P., Leemans, R. (1993). Assessing Impacts of Climate Change on Vegetation Using Climate Classification Systems. In: Solomon, A.M., Shugart, H.H. (eds) Vegetation Dynamics & Global Change. Springer, Boston, MA. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-1-4615-2816-6_10

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