Ongoing changes in climate, atmospheric carbon dioxide, and disturbance regimes are transforming the composition, structure, and functioning of the earth’s terrestrial ecosystems. Thus far, insights into how forests and other terrestrial ecosystems will change in response to changes in climate and rising atmospheric CO2 levels have relied heavily on the predictions of terrestrial biosphere models that contain detailed, mechanistic representations of the biological processes that underpin terrestrial ecosystem dynamics. In this talk, Moorcroft discusses some recent insights these models have provided on the impacts of changes in climate forcing on the fate of temperate forest ecosystems. He then discusses some recent progress on bridging between these complex, process-based models and simpler, analytically-tractable formulations in order to develop a predictive, non-equilibrium theory of terrestrial ecosystem dynamics
More info at the The Harvard University Center for the Environment