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Atmospheric Change and Biodiversity

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Abstract

Strategies to conserve biodiversity need to include the monitoring, modelling, adaptation and regulation of the composition of the atmosphere. Atmospheric issues include climate variability and extremes; climate change; stratospheric ozone depletion; acid deposition; photochemical pollution; suspended particulate matter; and hazardous air pollutants. Coarse filter and fine filter approaches have been used to understand the complexity of the interactions between the atmosphere and biodiversity. In the first approach, climate-based models, using GIS technology, helped create future biodiversity scenarios under a 2 × CO2 atmosphere. In the second approach, the SI/MAB forest biodiversity monitoring protocols helped calibrate the climate-forest biodiversity baseline and, as global diagnostics, helped identify where the biodiversity was in equilibrium with the present climate. Forest climate monitoring, an enhancing protocol, was used in a co-location approach to define the thermal buffering capacity of forest ecosystems and their ability to reduce and ameliorate global climate variability, extremes and change.

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MacIver, D.C. Atmospheric Change and Biodiversity. Environ Monit Assess 49, 177–189 (1998). https://doi.org/10.1023/A:1005846006449

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  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1023/A:1005846006449

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