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Forestry 1995 68(4):317-325; doi:10.1093/forestry/68.4.317
© 1995 by Institute of Chartered Foresters
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Global scale forest function and distribution

F. I. WOODWARD and S. E. LEE

Department of Animal and Plant Sciences, University of Sheffield P.O. Box 601, Sheffield, S10, 2UQ, England

A model is described for predicting the dynamic changes in the proportion of tree, shrub and grass life forms at the global scale. This model is driven by the impacts of climate, soils and CO2 on global vegetation leaf area index and net primary productivity. The life-form model has been used to explore the influences of global warming and continued CO2 increase on tree cover This reflects a realization from other modelling work that forested vegetation, at the global scale, exerts significant influences on climate, and so it is important to assess the potential for this feedback under climatic change.

An increase in CO2 from 350 to 560 p.p.m. is modelled to have only a small impact on tree cover, under current climate. A regionally-consistent and global increase in temperature of c.2{ring}C and a 10 per cent increase in precipitation, but with no increase in CO2, indicates a significant potential for trees to spread into current shrub tundra, over a period of 50 years This could lead to regional warming, through changes in winter albedo. The effect of the CO2 increase is most noticeable in interaction with increases in temperature (2{ring}C) and precipitation (10 per cent). In this case the life-form model projects further increases in tree cover, particularly in areas with seasonally low periods of precipitation.

Received 12 December 1994.
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