Week1 Earth System
Learning objectives: Be Able to identify the major components of the earth system. Describe some of the interactions between the different components of explain what UTC is and it's relationship to PST or PDT. |
The Earth System Figure 1. The six components of the Earth System (click to enlarge) |
Understanding the interactions between the components of the Earth system is central to understanding its overall behavior.
The sun is the primary source of energy for the earth system but is not technically part of the system. The reason for this is that although the sun influences all components of the Earth system none of these ever influence the sun itself. It drives: evaporation from oceans and soil, the winds, photosynthesis, and keeps Earth's temperature habitable. The fuel for our sun's intense energy is nuclear fusion deep within the sun's interior. 4 hydrogen nuclei fuse together to make 1 helium nucleus and in the process release huge amounts of energy each second. We will explore the sun as well as the Earth system in more detail later in the weeks to follow.
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Introductory Video: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ciV6Uaeobxk Earth System Science
Take a look at this picture of a broad definition of the Earth system.
Read each 1-page web page below for an overview of the six "Spheres" of the Earth System [from the Aspen Global Change Institute]
Atmosphere Biosphere Hydrosphere Cryosphere Geosphere Anthroposphere On each link there is a little chalk blackboard image that cycles through some interesting facts about each "sphere". These are good potential Exam #1 questions. You can go from one fact to the next by clicking on the little blackboard icon. See Study Questions These are not to turn in but are only for study and practice (some od these questions may appear on exam #1). Some of these questions are related to reading graphs which you should be familiar with after week 1 lab meeting.
Time
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UTC is universal coordinated time. Sometimes it is referred to as Greenwhich mean time and sometimes Zulu time. 1200 Z is the same as 12 noon Greenwhich mean time. Pacific standard time is UTC - 8 hours and Pacific Daylight time is UTC - 7 hours. Expressing time in UTC provides a way to communicate with others as to the exact time a measurement was made or an event happend. The link at left is a link to the official time from the US bureau of Standards. |
http://web.archive.org/web/20080204030228/www.agu.org/sci_soc/spheres/intro.htm (optional. May want to glance at the first few paragraphs)