Vegetation-Climate Interaction - How Vegetation Makes the Global Environment

Hardcover  232 pp  ISBN 9783540324911      £100.00

Ideal for undergraduates, researchers and conservationists alike, the author covers everything from tiny local microclimates created by plants to their effect on a global scale.

The book explains the influence of plants (both on land and in the ocean) in making clouds, haze and rain are considered, along with plant effects on the composition of greenhouse gases in the earth's atmosphere.

Also explored are the broad global feedbacks that either stabilize or destabilize the earth's environment. They are set in the context of environmental change in the recent geological past as well as 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 book presents a window on one of the world€s most important issues, explaining some of the underlying mechanisms by which plant life controls how our planet works and influences the climate, the atmosphere and the oceans.

Of interest to undergraduates and graduate students, researchers in the field of environmental sciences and conservationists

Contents

• The climate system;
• From climate to vegetation;
• Plants on the move;
• Microclimates and vegetation;
• The desert makes the desert: Climate feedbacks from the vegetation of arid zones;
• Forests;
• Plants and the carbon cycle;
• The direct carbon dioxide effect on plants.