ABSTRACT
Agricultural ecosystems (including crop and animal production, pastures and rangelands), forest ecosystems, and wetlands (including peatlands) can be regarded as one dimension of the problem, and climate change as another. This book synthesizes our current understanding of the processes of climate change and its impacts on different managed ecosystems. From a human perspective the impacts of climate change lie in the interactions among these different ecosystems: vulnerability must be assessed in terms of the collective impact on these terrestrial ecosystems that supply essential goods and services to society. Humans depend on these ecosystems for food, fiber, and clean air and water, and the adverse impacts of climate change are likely to have far-reaching effects on human lives and livelihoods.
