Publication Abstracts

Fung 1997

Fung, I., 1997: Climate change: A greener north. Nature, 386, 659-660, doi:10.1038/386659a0.

For whatever reasons, the period since 1980 has been the warmest in the past 200 years. Every gardener can speculate about the fate of his garden in response to the warming, but the bigger question is whether the biosphere has responded in some larger way to the climate perturbation. Sustained long-term observations of photosynthesis are rare. Furthermore, the biosphere is notoriously heterogeneous. It is very difficult to extrapolate from field measurements at a few sites to behaviour over a large region.

On page 698 of this issue , Myneni et al. present satellite evidence that, on average, the biosphere between 45°N and 70°N has been enjoying increased photosynthesis between 1981 and 1991. The authors suggest that temperature increases in the spring time have also brought a longer growing season to the high latitudes. The evidence presented by Myneni et al. is the first direct observation of the biosphere that photosynthesis has increased on such a broad scale for such a long time. The sate!lite observations are extremely provocative and, the authors argue, reveal specific areas where changes have occurred.

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BibTeX Citation

@article{fu04100j,
  author={Fung, I.},
  title={Climate change: A greener north},
  year={1997},
  journal={Nature},
  volume={386},
  pages={659--660},
  doi={10.1038/386659a0},
}

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RIS Citation

TY  - NEWS
ID  - fu04100j
AU  - Fung, I.
PY  - 1997
TI  - Climate change: A greener north
JA  - Nature
JO  - Nature
VL  - 386
SP  - 659
EP  - 660
DO  - 10.1038/386659a0
ER  -

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