The role of global circulation systems:
Regional and large-scale climate regimes largely account for plant diversity and vegetation patterns (Richter 2000) and cause different climate changes.
For the arctic region, strong warming (up to 8 K), especially in summer is predicted, with probable changes of precipitation patterns.
At mid-latitudes, warming, although less pronounced than in the arctic, and precipitation changes are predicted.
In the arid subtropics and in the tropics, according to the ECHAM4 circulation model (Roeckner et al. 1996), changes
in precipitation are likely to be more important than warming (< 2 K).
Deviating major circulation systems such as those caused by the large landmasses of the northern hemisphere are to be considered, e.g. monsoon-influenced regions. Of importance is to include the southern hemisphere outside of the tropics, because other climate change dynamics are expected than in northern hemisphere.
