Earth Systems

This book presents the complete story of the inseparably intertwined evolution of life and matter on earth, focussing on four major topics. It analyzes the driving forces behind global change and uses this knowledge to propose principles for global stewardship.

For courses in Earth Systems Science offered in departments of Geology, Earth Science, Geography and Environmental Science. The first textbook of its kind that addresses the issues of global change from a true Earth systems perspective, The Earth System offers a solid emphasis on lessons from Earth's history that may guide decision-making in the future. It is more rigorous and quantitative than traditional Earth science books, while remaining appropriate for non-science majors.

Explaining the what, the how and the why of climate science, this multidisciplinary new book provides a review of research from the last decade, illustrated with cutting-edge data and observations. A key focus is the development of analysis tools that can be used to demonstrate options for mitigating and adapting to increasing climate risks. Emphasis is given to the importance of Earth system feedback mechanisms and the role of the biosphere. The book explains advances in modelling, process understanding and observations, and the development of consistent and coherent studies of past, present and 'possible' climates. This highly illustrated, data-rich book is written by leading scientists involved in QUEST, a major UK-led research programme. It forms a concise and up-to-date reference for academic researchers or students in the fields of climatology, Earth system science and ecology, and also a vital resource for professionals and policymakers working on any aspect of global change.

The National Science Foundation (NSF) has played a key role over the past several decades in advancing understanding of Earth's systems by funding research on atmospheric, ocean, hydrologic, geologic, polar, ecosystem, social, and engineering-related processes. Today, however, those systems are being driven like never before by human technologies and activities. Our understanding has struggled to keep pace with the rapidity and magnitude of human-driven changes, their impacts on human and ecosystem sustainability and resilience, and the effectiveness of different pathways to address those challenges. Given the urgency of understanding human-driven changes, NSF will need to sustain and expand its efforts to achieve greater impact. The time is ripe to create a next-generation Earth systems science initiative that emphasizes research on complex interconnections and feedbacks between natural and social processes. This will require NSF to place an increased emphasis on research inspired by real-world problems while maintaining their strong legacy of curiosity driven research across many disciplines ? as well as enhance the participation of social, engineering, and data scientists, and strengthen efforts to include diverse perspectives in research.

Global Change and the Earth System describes what is known about the Earth system and the impact of changes caused by humans. It considers the consequences of these changes with respect to the stability of the Earth system and the well-being of humankind; as well as exploring future paths towards Earth-system science in support of global sustainability. The results presented here are based on 10 years of research on global change by many of the world's most eminent scholars. This valuable volume achieves a new level of integration and interdisciplinarity in treating global change.

Earth’s Evolving Systems: The History of Planet Earth, Second Edition is an introductory text designed for popular courses in undergraduate Earth history. Written from a “systems perspective,” it provides coverage of the lithosphere, hydrosphere, atmosphere, and biosphere, and discussion of how those systems interacted over the course of geologic time.

When humanity first glimpsed planet Earth from space, the unity of the system that supports humankind entered the popular consciousness. The concept of the Earth's atmosphere, biosphere, oceans, soil, and rocks operating as a closely interacting system has rapidly gained ground in science. This new field, involving geographers, geologists, biologists, oceanographers, and atmospheric physicists, is known as Earth System Science. In this Very Short Introduction, Tim Lenton considers how a world in which humans could evolve was created; how, as a species, we are now reshaping that world; and what a sustainable future for humanity within the Earth System might look like. Drawing on elements of geology, biology, chemistry, physics, and mathematics, Lenton asks whether Earth System Science can help guide us onto a sustainable course before we alter the Earth system to the point where we destroy ourselves and our current civilisation. ABOUT THE SERIES: The Very Short Introductions series from Oxford University Press contains hundreds of titles in almost every subject area. These pocket-sized books are the perfect way to get ahead in a new subject quickly. Our expert authors combine facts, analysis, perspective, new ideas, and enthusiasm to make interesting and challenging topics highly readable.

Self-organized criticality (SOC) has become a magic word in various scientific disciplines; it provides a framework for understanding complexity and scale invariance in systems showing irregular fluctuations. In the first 10 years after Per Bak and his co-workers presented their seminal idea, more than 2000 papers on this topic appeared. Seismology has been a field in earth sciences where the SOC concept has already deepened the understanding, but there seem to be much more examples in earth sciences where applying the SOC concept may be fruitful. After introducing the reader into the basics of fractals, chaos and SOC, the book presents established and new applications of SOC in earth sciences, namely earthquakes, forest fires, landslides and drainage networks.