Ecoinformatics Problems of Global Climate Change - New Ecoinformatics Tools in Environmental Science: Applications and Decision-making - page 405

appearing here are thoroughly studied within many international programmes on
the environment and climate. Especially, they are emphasized in the national pro-
grammes of the USA. In particular, analysis of consequences with the use of
various scenarios of possible changes of global climate has led to the conclusion
that in the case of several scenarios, the impact on forestry and agriculture in the
USA will be economically favourable. Partially, it is connected with the growth of
forests productivity (due to the growth of CO 2 concentration) and determined by the
ability of forests to adapt to climate change. As for agriculture, according to
available prognostic estimates for the period up to 2060, the positive impact of the
process of global warming on agriculture in the USA will be less economically
favourable than it follows from the earlier estimates.
Unfortunately, in view of the global and poorly studied character of correlation
between climate change and behaviour of vegetation cover (forest ecosystems, in
particular) at present there are no reliable estimates of the consequences of climate
change for their productivity. The study of the problems appearing here has been
just started.
One of the principal aspects of the anthropogenic impact on the environment is
the evaluation of the consequences of CO 2 emissions into the atmosphere. The
published results estimating the greenhouse effect and excess CO 2 distribution in
the biosphere, which bear on this problem, are widely varying and sometimes
contradictory or else they are too flatly stated. This is a natural consequence of all
kinds of simpli

cations adopted in modeling the global CO 2 cycle. The GIMS
makes it possible to create an effective monitoring system allowing the estimation
of the spatial distribution of the carbon sinks and sources in real time.
Before this, some problems should be solved to assess the role of the anthro-
pogenic use of the Earth

is surface. In particular, among these problems there is the
problem of the formalized description of the processes of change of the structure of
the Earth land covers, such as afforestation, forest reconstruction, deforestation and
the associated carbon supplies. Understanding of the meteorological processes as
functions of the greenhouse gases is one of the key problems of humankind in the

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first decade of the third Millennium. Only an adequate knowledge of the meteo-
rological phenomena on various spatial-temporal scales under conditions of varying
supplies of CO 2 and other greenhouse gases will enable one to make correct and
constructive decisions in the field of global environmental protection.

The dynamics of the surface ecosystems depends on interactions between bio-
geochemical cycles, which during the last decade of the 20th century suffered
signi

cation, especially to the cycles of carbon, nitrogen,
and water. The surface ecosystems, in which carbon remains in the living biomass,
decomposing organic matter, and the soil, play an important role in the global CO 2
cycle. Carbon exchanges between these reservoirs and the atmosphere take place
through photosynthesis, respiration, decomposition, and burning. Human interfer-
ence into this process takes place through changing the structure of the vegetation
covers, pollution of the water basin surfaces and of the soil areas, as well as through
direct emissions of CO 2 into the atmosphere.

cant anthropogenic modi