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Table of contents: Preface ................................................................................................................................... 4 Foreword by Brian Walker .................................................................................................... 5 Summary ............................................................................................................................... 6 Introduction ........................................................................................................................... 8 I Altered atmospheric composition - an introduction to the issue of potential biological responses .............................................................................................................................. 10 1.1 Effects of increased atmospheric CO2 concentrations. ................................... 10 1.1.1 First order effects .............................................................................. 11 1.1.2 Second order effects ......................................................................... 13 1.2 Direct effects of changes in temperature and moisture .................................... 15 1.2.1 Plants ................................................................................................ 16 1.2.2 Animals ............................................................................................ 17 1.3 Effects on ecological interactions between species ......................................... 18 1.4 Adaptation, migration or extinction? Broad scale manifestation of responses to climate change.................................................. 20 1.5 Is the terrestrial biosphere a carbon sink? ........................................................ 23 1.6 Marine ecosystems ........................................................................................... 24 II International programs................................................................................................... 28 2.1 IGBP - International Geosphere-Biosphere Programme ................................. 28 2.1.1 GCTE - Global Change and Terrestrial Ecosystems ....................... 29 2.1.2 Other IGBP Core Projects ............................................................... 40 2.2 SCOPE Scientific Programme ......................................................................... 42 2.2.1 ISBI - International Sustainable Biosphere Initiative ........................................................................................... 43 2.2.2 IUBS - SCOPE - Unesco Programme on Ecosystem Function of Biodiversity - Diversitas. ............................................. 44 2.3 The Role of Antarctica in Global Change (SCAR) ......................................... 45 2.4 GLOBEC - Global Ocean Ecosystem Dynamics (SCOR/IOC/ICES) .......................................................................................... 47 2.5 MAB - Man and the Biosphere (Unesco) ........................................................ 48 2.5.1 ITEX - International Tundra Experiment ........................................ 48 2.5.2 Unesco/MAB and IUBS cooperative projects. ................................ 49 2.6 IPCC - Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Changes (UN) ........................... 50 2.7 ENVIRONMENT (CEC) ................................................................................. 51 2.7.1 CLIMEX - Climate Change Experiment ......................................... 56 2.8 ICAT -Impacts of Elevated CO2 Levels, Climate Change and Air Pollutants on Tree Physiology (COST) .............................................. 57 2.9 Science of Global Environmental Change (NATO) ........................................ 58 III Research on biological effects of climate changes in some selected countries .......... 60 3.1. Belgium ........................................................................................................ 61 3.2 Canada .......................................................................................................... 69 3.3 China ............................................................................................................ 73 3.4 Denmark ....................................................................................................... 76 3.5 Finland ......................................................................................................... 80 3.6 France ........................................................................................................... 87 3.7 Germany ....................................................................................................... 93 3.8 The Netherlands ........................................................................................... 99 3.9 Norway ......................................................................................................... 103 3.10 South Africa ................................................................................................. 112 3.11 Sweden ......................................................................................................... 116 3.12 United Kingdom. .......................................................................................... 119 3.13 United States of America ............................................................................. 133 APPENDICES ..................................................................................................................... 148 A. References ........................................................................................................................ 148 B. List of contact points ........................................................................................................ 155 International programs (chapter 2) ............................................................................ 155 National research (chapter 3) ..................................................................................... 159 C. List of project titles ........................................................................................................... 179 D. Acronyms.......................................................................................................................... 188 BIOLOGICAL EFFECTS OF CLIMATE CHANGE An introduction to the field and a survey of current research by Gørill Kristiansen Center for International Climate and Energy Research in Oslo -CICERO 2 3 4 Preface This project was motivated by difficulties for scientists to familiarize with the complex network of institutions, organizations and research programs of climate change, combined with the obvious need for more biologists to direct their efforts towards the field of climate change impact studies. I am greatly indebted to CICERO by its director Ted Hanisch and research coordinator Kjell Arne Hagen, who took an immediate interest in the project idea and provided me with an excellent place to work as well as the necessary finacial resources. CICERO is primarily a center for the social sciences, yet with the few natural scientists connected to CICERO, this is one of the few institutions were the concept of interdisciplinarity actually seems to give results. Shortly after the initiation of this project, which originally was planned for half a year, the GCTE by its chairman Dr. Brian Walker and officer Dr. Will Steffen expressed their great interest . After a meeting with Will Steffen it was decided to broaden the scope of the project, which mainly resulted in the addition of a survey of the national level research together with the already planned overview of international programs. This demanded a prolongation of the time-period as well as additional financial resources. The funding for a three months extention of the project was provided by the Royal Ministry of Finance, the National Committee for Environmental Research (Norwegian Research Council, Div. NAVF), and the Steering Committee for the Environment and Development (Norwegian Research Council, Div. NAVF). In order to map current research, this study could not be based on existing literature. Rather, it has depended upon the cooperation of the more than a hundred people who have been requested for information on the on-going research of their institute or on individual projects. Without the positive response and solid support from those requested, this report would not exist. For this report to present up-to-date information the work had to be performed within a very strict time frame. The flexibility and goodwill of CICERO allowed me to hire Cand. scient. Nina Trandem to help me through the final spurt. She provided excellent scientific as well as editorial help, for which I am most grateful. Furthermore, Will Steffen has contributed significantly by his comments on an earlier draft on the manuscript. Last, but not least, I am utterly grateful for the excellent comments, ideas and inspiration from my scientific supervisor prof. Nils Christian Stenseth. Oslo, February 1993 Gørill Kristiansen Cand. scient. 5 Foreword by Brian Walker Climate change heads the list of global environmental problems that have, over the last several years, become firmly entrenched on the international political agenda. Until very recently, much of the emphasis in the climate change debate has focussed on changes to the atmosphere itself, and what they might mean in terms of rising temperature. Increasingly, however, the focus is shifting to the impacts of climate change (which includes not only