[Thermodynamic approach to estimating climate change impacts on the vegetation cover].

Possible changes of zonal phytocenoses for the territory of European Russia under a 1 degrees C increase in the annual mean global surface temperature are analyzed from a thermodynamic point of view. Outputs of the atmosphere-ocean general circulation model HadCM3 (Met Office Hadley Centre, United Kingdom) and the intermediate-complexity climate model developed at the Institute of Atmospheric Physics, Russian Academy of Sciences, are used. Model estimates of the annual entropy production by the vegetation cover for the territory under study are obtained for the second half of the 20th century.

[Model estimates of climate change impact on habitats of zonal vegetation for the plain territories of Russia].

Possible changes in the habitats of zonal phytocenoses for the plain territories of Russia under a 1 degrees C increase in the annual mean global surface temperature are estimated by simulation with the atmosphere-ocean general circulation models ECHAM4/OPYC3 and HadCM3 and the intermediate-complexity climate model of the Institute of Atmospheric Physics for anthropogenic scenarios of greenhouse gas changes. The response of the phytocenotic habitats to possible climate changes is estimated from the changes in net primary production for the considered climatic scenarios. The obtained data allowed us to recognize the zonal phytocenoses most sensitive to climate changes.

[Successions in the forest-steppe under climate changes: a modelling approach].

The paper represents an attempt to apply the general principles of modelling vegetation dynamics under climate changes to a study of the long-term vegetation dynamics in the forest-steppe zone of the European territory of Russia, with a purpose to forecast under special climatic scenarios. An original technique is used to construct a Markov chain as a model of vegetation succession. The technique emanated from gebotanic knowledge generalized as a scheme of successional transitions with estimates of the average duration for certain stages of succession.