Martin Heimann, ed., The Global Carbon Cycle (Berlin: Springer-Verlag, 1994).

This book contains the proceedings of a NATO Advanced Research Workshop held within the activities of the NATO Special Program on Global Environmental Change, which started in 1991 under the auspices of the NATO Science Committee. In his article "Biome Modeling and the Carbon Cycle," Colin Prentice defined "biomes" as structurally and functionally distinct ecosystem complexes. There are 15-20 different biomes--some easy to distinguish as tundra, hot deserts, temperate deciduous forests, and tropical rain forests--others are more difficult to classify. Differences between biomes are important for the carbon cycle because they account for much of the spatial variation in the size of biomass and soil carbon stores.