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Conclusion

The presented climate-vegetation model including a carbon cycle shows some interesting features: the performed stability analysis of the equilibria of the system give us up to three stable points. Depending on the initial condition of our planet, the ``cold'' desert without any vegetation will be stable, the ``cold planet'' with a large amount of vegetation will exist, or a ``hot'' planet with a small amount on vegetation compared to the cold planet will be reached. The initiation of life on our virtual planet depends on the value of two bifurcation parameters, the total amount of carbon A in the system and a combination of biotic characteristics tex2html_wrap_inline1601 of the vegetation.

The stability of the different stationary states can be dramatically changed if we increase the total amount of carbon by, e.g., anthropogenic emissions. It is possible that the cold planet becomes unstable and a new equilibrium such as the hot planet is realized. Such a transition forces a drastic decrease in the vegetation of the planet.

In a next step we will introduce a water cycle into the model. This will increase the number of bifurcation points of the planet. A second goal is the determination of transition times from one stable equilibrium to another due to stochastic perturbations of the system.


next up previous
Next: References Up: Climatevegetation, and global Previous: About the numerical estimation

Werner von Bloh (Data & Computation)
Thu Jul 13 11:24:58 MEST 2000