Vegetation-climate interaction : how plants make the global environment / Jonathan Adams.

Format:

Book

Author/Creator:

Adams, J. M. (Jonathan M.)

Series:

Springer-Praxis books in environmental sciences

Language:

English

Subjects (All):

Plant-atmosphere relationships.

Vegetation and climate.

Carbon cycle (Biogeochemistry).

Physical Description:

xxi, 266 pages, 24 unnumbered pages of plates : illustrations (some color), maps (some color) ; 25 cm.

Edition:

Second edition.

Place of Publication:

Berlin ; New York : Springer ; Chichester, UK : In association with Praxis, 2010.

Summary:

Vegetation-Climate Interaction provides a readable, accessible account of the way in which the world's plant life partly controls its own environment. Starting from the broad patterns in vegetation which have classically been seen as a passive response to climate, the book builds up from the local scale - microclimates produced by plants - to the regional and global scale. The influence of plants (both on land and in the ocean) in making clouds, haze and rain is also considered, along with plant effects on the composition of greenhouse gases in the Earth's atmosphere. Broad global feedbacks that either stabilize or destabilize the Earth's environment are explored in the context of environmental change, both in the recent geological past and in the near future. Common contentions and misconceptions about the role of vegetation or forest removal in the spread of deserts are also considered.

This completely revised and extensively illustrated edition:

brings together the very latest research in a rapidly advancing field;

explains the underlying mechanisms that control how our planet works;

detsails the interaction between the climate, the atmosphere, and the oceans of our planet;

emphasises feedback loops and earth system processes involving vegetation both on land in the sea;

Includes many new illustrations.

Contents:

1 The climate system 1

1.1 Why does climate vary from one place to another? 2

1.1.1 Why mountains are colder 4

1.2 Winds and currents: the atmosphere and oceans 6

1.3 The ocean circulation 9

1.3.1 Ocean gyres and the "Roaring Forties" (or Furious Fifties) 9

1.3.2 Winds and ocean currents push against one another 10

1.4 The thermohaline circulation 10

1.5 The great heat-transporting machine 15

1.5.1 The "continental" climate 17

1.5.2 Patterns of precipitation 18

2 From climate to vegetation 27

2.1 Biomes: the broad vegetation types of the world 27

2.2 An example of a biome or broad-scale vegetation type: tropical rainforest 28

2.3 The world's major vegetation types 31

2.4 Understanding the patterns 37

2.5 What favors forest vegetation 39

2.5.1 Why trees need more warmth 39

2.5.2 Why trees need more water 40

2.6 Deciduous or evergreen: the adaptive choices that plants make 43

2.7 Cold-climate evergreenness 48

2.8 The latitudinal bands of evergreen and deciduous forest 50

2.9 Nutrients and evergreenness 50

2.10 Other trends in forest with climate 52

2.11 Non-forest biomes 53

2.12 Scrub biomes 53

2.13 Grasslands 53

2.14 Deserts 54

2.15 Biomes are to some extent subjective 54

2.16 Humans altering the natural vegetation, shifting biomes 55

2.17 "Predicting" where vegetation types will occur 55

2.18 Species distributions and climate 59

2.18.1 Patterns in species richness 60

3 Plants on the move 67

3.1 Vegetation can move as the climate shifts 67

3.2 The Quaternary: the last 2.4 million years 67

3.3 Biomes in the distant past 75

3.3.1 Sudden changes in climate, and how vegetation responds 75

3.4 The increasing greenhouse effect, and future vegetation change 81

3.5 Response of vegetation to the present warming of climate 81

3.6 Seasons as well as vegetation distribution are changing 86

3.7 What will happen as the warming continues? 88

3.7.1 Movement of biomes under greenhouse effect warming 92

4 Microclimates and vegetation 97

4.1 What causes microclimates? 97

4.1.1 At the soil surface and below 98

4.1.2 Above the surface: the boundary layer and wind speed 99

4.1.3 Roughness and turbulence 102

4.1.4 Microclimates of a forest canopy 103

4.1.5 Under the canopy 106

4.1.6 Big plants "make" the microclimates of smaller plants 108

4.1.7 The importance of sun angle 110

4.1.8 Bumps and hollows in the landscape have their own microclimate 112

4.1.9 Life within rocks: endolithic lichens and algae 114

4.1.10 Plants creating their own microclimate 115

4.1.11 Dark colors 115

4.1.12 Protection against freezing 115

4.1.13 Internal heating 115

4.1.14 Volatiles from leaves 116

4.1.15 Utilization of microclimates in agriculture 116

4.2 From microclimates to macroclimates 117

5 The desert makes the desert: Climate feedbacks from the vegetation of arid zones 121

5.1 Geography makes deserts 121

5.2 But deserts make themselves 122

5.2.1 The Sahel and vegetation feedbacks 127

5.2.2 Have humans really caused the Sahelian droughts? 132

5.3 Could the Sahara be made green? 132

5.4 A human effect on climate? The grasslands of the Great Plains in the USA 136

5.5 The Green Sahara of the past 139

5.6 Could other arid regions show the same amplification of change by vegetation cover? 143

5.7 Dust 145

5.7.1 Sudden ciimate switches and dust 149

5.8 The future 150

6 Forests 153

6.1 Finding out what forests really do to climate 155

6.2 What deforestation does to climate within a region 161

6.3 Re-afforestation 169

6.4 The remote effects of deforestation 169

6.5 The role of forest feedback in broad swings in climate 170

6.5.1 Deforestation and the Little Ice Age 170

6.5.2 Deforestation around the Mediterranean and drying in North Africa 173

6.5.3 Forest feedbacks during the Quaternary 173

6.6 Volatile organic compounds and climate 176

6.7 Forest-climate feedbacks in the greenhouse world 177

7 Plants and the carbon cycle 181

7.1 The ocean 183

7.2 Plants as a control on CO₂ and O₂ 185

7.3 Methane: the other carbon gas 187

7.3.1 Carbon and the history of the earth's temperature 188

7.3.2 Plants, weathering and CO₂ 189

7.3.3 Plants, CO₂ and ice ages 193

7.4 Humans and the carbon store of plants 198

7.5 The present increase in CO₂ 201

7.5.1 The oceans as a carbon sink 204

7.5.2 Seasonal and year-to-year wiggles in CO₂ level 205

7.6 The signal in the atmosphere 210

7.7 The strength of the seasonal "wiggle" in CO₂ 212

7.8 Accounting errors: the missing sink 213

7.9 Watching forests take up carbon 215

7.9.1 Predicting changes in global carbon balance under global warming 217

8 The direct carbon dioxide effect on plants 221

8.1 The two direct effects of CO₂ on plants: photosynthesis and water balance 221

8.2 Increased CO₂ effects at the scale of a leaf 222

8.3 Modeling direct CO₂ effects 223

8.4 What models predict for increasing CO₂ and global vegetation 224

8.5 Adding climate change to the CO₂ fertilization effect 225

8.6 Experiments with raised CO₂ and whole plants 227

8.6.1 The sort of results that are found in CO₂ enrichment experiments 230

8.6.2 A decline in response with time 233

8.7 Temperature and CO₂ responses interacting 233

8.8 A few examples of what is found in Face experiments 234

8.8.1 Forests 234

8.8.2 Semi-desert and dry grassland vegetation 236

8.8.3 Will C⁴ plants lose out in an increased CO₂ world? 237

8.9 Other Face experiments 242

8.9.1 Face studies on agricultural systems 242

8.10 Some conclusions about Face experiments 244

8.10.1 Will a high CO₂ world favor C³ species over C⁴ species? 244

8.10.2 What factors tend to decrease plant responses to CO₂ fertilization? 245

8.11 There are other effects of enhanced CO₂ on plants apart from growth rate 245

8.12 CO₂ fertilization and soils 246

8.13 CO₂ fertilization effects across trophic levels 247

8.13.1 Looking for signs of a CO₂ fertilization effect in agriculture 248

8.13.2 Looking for signs of a CO₂ fertilization effect in natural plant communities 249

8.13.3 The changing seasonal amplitude of CO₂ 252

8.14 CO₂ levels and stomata out in nature 253

8.15 Direct CO₂ effects and the ecology of the past 253

8.15.1 Direct CO₂ effects on longer geological timescales 256

8.15.2 Ancient moist climates or high CO₂ effects? 257

8.16 Other direct CO₂ effects: in the oceans 258

8.17 The future direct CO₂ effect: a good or a bad thing for the natural world? 259

8.18 Conclusion: The limits to what we can know 260.

Notes:

Previous ed.: Berlin: Springer, 2008.

Includes bibliographical references and index.

ISBN:

9783642008801

3642008801

OCLC:

416295055