Atmospheric variables as driving variables of agricultural and forest ecosystems

Abstract

Atmospheric variables, which represent meteorology if seen in their instantaneous behavior or climatology if seen in their long time behavior, can be considered among the main driving variables of agricultural and forest ecosystems. In other words meteo-climatic variables determine productivity and quality and territorial specificity of agroforestry productions. On the base of this premise some significant examples are shown in order to describe how different modeling approaches (empirical and mechanistic) can improve our degree of description of phenomena and the rationality of our approach to management of agro-ecosystem. The need of strict linkage among agrometeorology and other physical and biological sciences referred to agro-forestry ecosystems is also discussed.