Thursday, 17 January 2002: 9:30 AM
Human influences on the global climate system—The first order effect of landuse change and landscape dynamics
Modeling and observational studies on the global and regional scale
provide evidence that landuse change and landscape dynamics exert
major influences on the climate system. In our talk we present our
most recent work on the relative role of landuse change, the
biogeochemical effect of increased carbon dioxide, and the radiative
effect of increased carbon dioxide on regional and global climate. Our
results provide evidence of the teleconnection of land-surface effects
regionally and globally. Among our conclusions is that climate change
assessments which do not include landuse change and landscape dynamics
are ignoring first-order human effects on the climate system and are,
therefore, unlikely to be realistic predictors of future climate.
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