Drawing on a host of scientific studies, this text explores how rising levels of CO2 in the atmosphere have impacted water in plants and soils. It discusses drought, the soil-plant-atmosphere continuum, the soil atmosphere, root growth, and variable oxygen concentration of soil. The book also covers the use of carbon isotope ratios in plant science, stomatal conductance and density, transpiration and evapotranspiration, water use efficiency, C4 photosynthesis, plant anatomy, phenology, and measures of plant growth. More than 200 high quality figures illustrate the concepts discussed.

Understanding Climate Change Impacts on Crop Productivity and Water examines the greenhouse gas emissions and their warming effect, climate change projections, crop productivity and water. The book explores the most important greenhouse gases that influence the climate system, technical terms associated with climate projections, and the different mechanisms impacting crop productivity and water balance. Adaptive and mitigative strategies are proposed to cope with negative effects of climate change in particular domains. This book will help researchers interested in climate change impacts on the atmosphere, soil and plants. - Uncovers links between climate change and its impact on crop and water outputs - Integrates information on greenhouse gas cycles and mathematical equations into climate/crop models for analysis and seasonal prediction systems - Provides strategies for efficient resource management and sustainable crop production in future - Helps researchers interested in climate change impacts on the atmosphere, soil and plants

From reviews of the first edition: "well organized . . . Recommended as an introductory text for undergraduates" -- AAAS Science Books and Films "well written and illustrated" -- Bulletin of the American Meteorological Society

Provides an essential introduction to modeling terrestrial ecosystems in Earth system models for graduate students and researchers.

Plant Perspectives to Global Climate Changes: Developing Climate-Resilient Plants reviews and integrates currently available information on the impact of the environment on functional and adaptive features of plants from the molecular, biochemical and physiological perspectives to the whole plant level. The book also provides a direction towards implementation of programs and practices that will enable sustainable production of crops resilient to climatic alterations. This book will be beneficial to academics and researchers working on stress physiology, stress proteins, genomics, proteomics, genetic engineering, and other fields of plant physiology. Advancing ecophysiological understanding and approaches to enhance plant responses to new environmental conditions is critical to developing meaningful high-throughput phenotyping tools and maintaining humankind's supply of goods and services as global climate change intensifies. - Illustrates the central role for plant ecophysiology in applying basic research to address current and future challenges for humans - Brings together global leaders working in the area of plant-environment interactions and shares research findings - Presents current scenarios and future plans of action for the management of stresses through various approaches

Several findings emerge here: (1) rapid plant growth and slow rehydration responses to surface rewetting are more widespread than previously thought. Given their additional water stress responses to interstorm drying, global vegetation and consequently the carbon cycle are vulnerable to shifting rainfall intensity and interstorm length under climate change. (2) Landscapes most vulnerable to environmental variability and change are those that progressively spend more time in the water-limited regime, not necessarily those that receive the greatest forcing variability. (3) Satellite plant water content observations contain information on sub-weekly timescales consistent with plant hydraulic theory and field measurements, which reveals new avenues for vegetation remote sensing and ecological modeling efforts.