The importance of forests in alleviating climate change processes is a matter of global concern and debate, at a time when politicians are close to implementing carbon trading quotas. "Carbon Balance of Forest Biomes" provides an informed synthesis on the current status of forests and their future potential for carbon sequestration. This volume is timely, since convincing models which scale from local to regional carbon fluxes are needed to support these international agreements, while criticisms have been leveled at existing empirical approaches. One key question is to determine how well eddy-flux measurements at the stand-level represent regional-scale processes. This may be related to specific management practices (age, plantation, fertilization) or simple bias in choosing representative sites (ease of access, roughness, proximity to physical barriers). The ecology and regeneration state of temperate, tropical and boreal forests under current climatic conditions are discussed, together with partitioning of photosynthetic and respiratory fluxes from soils and vegetation. The volume considers how to integrate contrasting methodologies, and the latest approaches for scaling from stand to the planetary boundary layer.

1. The Global Imperative and Policy for Carbon Sequestration. 2. Role of Forest Biomes in the Global Carbon Balance. 3. Carbon Sequestration in European Croplands. 4. Estimating Forest and Other Terrestrial Carbon Fluxes at a National Scale: the UK Experience. 5. Regional-Scale Estimates of Forest CO2 and Isotope Flux Based on Monthly CO2 Budgets of the Atmospheric Boundary Layer. 6. Regional Measurement and Modelling of Carbon Balances. 7. The Potential for Rising CO2 to Account for the Observed Uptake of Carbon by Tropical, Temperate and Boreal Forest Biomes. 8. Measurement of CO2 exchange between Boreal Forest and the Atmosphere. 9. Carbon Exchange of Decidous Broadleaved Forests in Temperature and Mediterranean Regions. 10. The Carbon Balance of the Tropical Forest Biome. 11. The Carbon Balance of Forest Soils: Detectability of Changes in Soil Carbon Stocks in Temperate and Boreal Forests. 12. Fractional Contributions Autotrophic and Heterotrophic Respiration to Soil-surface CO2 Efflux in Boreal Forests. 13. Trace Gas and Contributions of Peatlands to Global Warming Potential. 14. Contribution of Trace Gases Nitrous Oxide (N2O) and Methane (CH4) to the Atmospheric Warming Balance of Forest Biomes. 15. Effects of Reforestation, Deforestation and Afforestation on Carbon Storage in Soils. 16. Carbon Forestry.