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Inadvertent alterations of the earth's atmosphere by man's
activities are now of regional and even global proportion.
Increasing concern has been focused in the last decade on
consequences of acid rain, carbon dioxide enrichment of the
atmosphere and reduction of ozone in the upper atmosphere. The
latter two problems are of truly global scale. This book focuses on
the atmospheric ozone reduction problem and the potential
consequences for plant life. unlike carbon dioxide enrichment,
reduction of the total atmospheric ozone column has not yet taken
place to a noticeable degree -- it is a problem of the future. The
processes leading to ozone reduction involve time periods on the
scale of decades. However, by the same token, if society finds
ozone reduction to be unacceptable it will take even longer for the
process to be reversed. Thus, anticipation of the consequences of
ozone reduction is of obvious importance. Speculation of the
possibility of ozone reduction first appeared in the early 1970's
and was focused on the consequences of the injection of large
quantities of nitrogen oxides into the upper atmosphere by
supersonic aircraft flying at high altitudes. Other sources of
nitrogen oxides originating from the earth's surface were also
considered. With further refinement, the concerns of nitrogen oxide
pollution of the upper atmosphere were diminished since the
quantities likely to be involved were insufficient to cause a
serious threat to the ozone layer.
In a world of increasing atmospheric CO2, there is intensified
interest in the ecophysiology of photosynthesis and increasing
attention is being given to carbon exchange and storage in natural
ecosystems. We need to know how much photosynthesis of terrestrial
and aquatic vegetation will change as global CO2 increases. Are
there major ecosystems, such as the boreal forests, which may
become important sinks of CO2 and slow down the effects of
anthropogenic CO2 emissions on climate? Will the composition of the
vegetation change as a result of CO2 increase?
This volume reviews the progress which has been made in
understanding photosynthesis in the past few decades at several
levels of integration from the molecular level to canopy, ecosystem
and global scales.
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