Concluding Comments

Abstract

One of the strong motivations for better understanding the patterns and processes controlling vegetation pattern at the global scale has been an increased awareness of the Earth’s systems (as a whole) and the realization that the Earth has changed in the past and may do so again. The climatic changes that are being predicted by computer models of the earth’s “weather machine” (General Circulation Models, or GCMs) in response to a doubling of atmospheric carbon dioxide appear to be ecologically significant, at least at the higher northern latitudes (Shugart et al. 1986). Nevertheless, “uncertainty” is one of the key words that arises in any discussions evaluating the possibility and impact of anthropogenic global climate change. As reviewed in Bolin et al. (1986), the uncertainty of the magnitude of the increase in the Earth’s CO₂ ambient and the temporal pattern of the projected increase is great, as is the regional pattern of climatec change (particularly with regard to the climate variables that involve water—precipitation, cloudiness, soil moisture, etc.)