Day 3 - Major system components
of the earth.
Atmosphere: the gases.
- what is the air you breath composed of?
- why does it have the composition it does?
- how is it stratified (vertically stacked
- what drives and shapes atmospheric circulation?
- where does water reside?
- how salty is the ocean and where do the 'salts'
- why and how are the oceans stratified?
- what drives oceanic circulation?
- where is the ice?
- a separate sphere or part of the hydrosphere?
- because of coupling with sea level a very
- the recent Ice Age.
Biosphere: living things.
- what are characteristics of life?
- how much is there?
- terrestrial versus marine versus crustal
- what is the importance of aerobes vs. anaerobes?
Geosphere (lithosphere): sediments, rocks and magma.
- what is the earth made of ?
- how is the earth internally stratified?
- what is a rheid?
- a definition of plate tectonics.
defined as that connected to the humanity.
- why not part of the biosphere?
- the importance of technology plus population
What are some important descriptors of system
- pressure, temperature, thermal constants
(of heat content, expandability), composition, density, viscosity.
- how do you model the variation in these attributes
through space and time?