scholarly journals Life on Earth is hard to spot

2020 ◽  
Vol 7 (3) ◽  
pp. 248-272
Author(s):  
Timothy M Lenton ◽  
Sébastien Dutreuil ◽  
Bruno Latour
Keyword(s):  
Energy Balance ◽  
Earth System ◽  
Gaia Hypothesis ◽  
The Earth ◽  
Life On Earth

The triumph of the Gaia hypothesis was to spot the extraordinary influence of Life on the Earth. ‘Life’ is the clade including all extant living beings, as distinct from ‘life’ the class of properties common to all living beings. ‘Gaia’ is Life plus its effects on habitability. Life’s influence on the Earth was hard to spot for several reasons: biologists missed it because they focused on life not Life; climatologists missed it because Life is hard to see in the Earth’s energy balance; Earth system scientists opted instead for abiotic or human-centred approaches to the Earth system; Scientists in general were repelled by teleological arguments that Life acts to maintain habitable conditions. Instead, we reason from organisms’ metabolisms outwards, showing how Life’s coupling to its environment has led to profound effects on Earth’s habitability. Recognising Life’s impact on Earth and learning from it could be critical to understanding and successfully navigating the Anthropocene.

scholarly journals Passive Remote Study of the Aerosol in the Upper Atmosphere of the Earth

2019 ◽  
pp. 1-6
Author(s):  
Oleksandr Zbrutskyi ◽  
◽  
Nevodovskyi P ◽  
Anatoliy Vid’machenko ◽  
◽  
...  
Keyword(s):  
Global Warming ◽  
Energy Balance ◽  
Climate Changes ◽  
Upper Atmosphere ◽  
Anthropogenic Factors ◽  
The Sun ◽  
Earth System ◽  
Relative Contribution ◽  
The Earth

Climate changes on planet Earth are mainly caused by disturbances in the energy balance of the Sun-Earth system. This process is the result of both natural changes in nature and the influence of anthropogenic factors. The combined effect of these factors can lead to threatening phenomena for mankind - a decrease in the power of the ozone layer, the formation of “ozone holes” and global warming on the planet and other disasters. The study of the causes of these factors and the determination of their relative contribution is one of the pressing problems of our time.

New Heavens, New Earth

Dark Skies ◽  
2020 ◽  
pp. 65-104
Author(s):  
Daniel Deudney
Keyword(s):  
Solar System ◽  
Human Life ◽  
Earth System ◽  
Human Control ◽  
The Past ◽  
The Earth ◽  
Orbital Space ◽  
The Many ◽  
Life On Earth ◽  
Modern Astronomy

Humans have always attributed enormous importance to occurrences in the heavens. Over the past several centuries modern astronomy has revealed a cosmos of staggering size, filled with trillions of worlds. Its vacuum, weightlessness, lethal radiations, and fantastic speeds make space harshly inhospitable to human life. To access orbital space requires velocities some thirty-four times as fast as jet aircraft, climbing out of steep gravity wells. Of the many bodies mapped by science in this solar system, asteroids are most practically important because they sometimes collide with great violence, profoundly shaping Earth’s deep history. As knowledge of the cosmos has grown, anticipations of nearby intelligent life have dramatically shrunk. The Space Age has also witnessed a far-reaching revolution in understanding the Earth System. Marked by complexity, chaos, and emergence, life on Earth is incompletely understood and inventoried and much less subject to human control than previously assumed, reducing the feasibility of expansionist visions.

Thermodynamics and the recognition of alien biospheres

1975 ◽  
Vol 189 (1095) ◽  
pp. 167-181 ◽  
Keyword(s):  
Energy Balance ◽  
Thermodynamic Properties ◽  
The Other ◽  
Remote Detection ◽  
Atmospheric Composition ◽  
Terrestrial Planets ◽  
General Application ◽  
The Earth ◽  
Life On Earth

The presence of a mature biosphere is likely to change surface and atmospheric composition and the energy balance of a planet away from that of the abiotic state. Is it possible that such a change might be detected from afar by astronomical techniques and so form the basis of a test for the presence of a planetary biosphere? A distant view of the Earth in this context shows that certain of its thermodynamic properties are recognizably different from those of the other terrestrial planets, which presumably are lifeless. The general application of this test for the remote detection of other biospheres will be discussed, as will some implications of this way of viewing biospheres on the nature and organizations of life on Earth.

scholarly journals Earth’s Complexity Is Non-Computable: The Limits of Scaling Laws, Nonlinearity and Chaos

Entropy ◽  
2021 ◽  
Vol 23 (7) ◽  
pp. 915
Author(s):  
Sergio Rubin
Keyword(s):  
Complex System ◽  
Scaling Laws ◽  
Climate Models ◽  
Spatial Scales ◽  
Numerical Algorithms ◽  
Earth System ◽  
Response Dynamics ◽  
Planetary Scale ◽  
Gaia Hypothesis ◽  
The Earth

Current physics commonly qualifies the Earth system as ‘complex’ because it includes numerous different processes operating over a large range of spatial scales, often modelled as exhibiting non-linear chaotic response dynamics and power scaling laws. This characterization is based on the fundamental assumption that the Earth’s complexity could, in principle, be modeled by (surrogated by) a numerical algorithm if enough computing power were granted. Yet, similar numerical algorithms also surrogate different systems having the same processes and dynamics, such as Mars or Jupiter, although being qualitatively different from the Earth system. Here, I argue that understanding the Earth as a complex system requires a consideration of the Gaia hypothesis: the Earth is a complex system because it instantiates life—and therefore an autopoietic, metabolic-repair (M,R) organization—at a planetary scale. This implies that the Earth’s complexity has formal equivalence to a self-referential system that inherently is non-algorithmic and, therefore, cannot be surrogated and simulated in a Turing machine. I discuss the consequences of this, with reference to in-silico climate models, tipping points, planetary boundaries, and planetary feedback loops as units of adaptive evolution and selection.

Revisiting the variation of the climate feedback parameter

2021 ◽  
Author(s):  
Diego Jiménez-de-la-Cuesta
Keyword(s):  
Energy Balance ◽  
Explicit Expression ◽  
Climate Feedback ◽  
Additional Contribution ◽  
Earth System ◽  
Surface Temperature Change ◽  
Feedback Parameter ◽  
The Earth ◽  
Ocean Atmosphere ◽  
Spatio Temporal

<p>Observations and models indicate a varying radiative response of the Earth system to CO<sub>2</sub> forcing. This variation introduces large uncertainties in the climate sensitivity estimates to increasing atmospheric CO<sub>2</sub> concentration. This variation is represented as an additional feedback mechanism in energy-balance models, which depends on more than only the surface temperature change. Models and observations also indicate that a spatio-temporal pattern in the surface warming controls this additional contribution to the radiative response. However, several authors picture this effect as a feedback change in the atmosphere, reducing the role of the ocean's enthalpy-uptake variations. I use a widely-known linearised conceptual energy-balance model and its analytical solutions to find an explicit expression of the radiative response and its temporal evolution. This explicit expression provides another timescale in the Earth system, as the ocean-atmosphere coupling modulates the radiative response. Thus, to understand the variation of the climate feedback parameter, we need not only to know its relation to the spatio-temporal warming pattern but an improved picture of the ocean-atmosphere coupling that generates the pattern.</p>

A Stable or an Unstable World?

On Gaia ◽  
2013 ◽  
Author(s):  
Toby Tyrrell
Keyword(s):  
Compelling Evidence ◽  
Earth History ◽  
Gaia Hypothesis ◽  
The Earth ◽  
Constant Environment ◽  
Earth Environment ◽  
Life On Earth

This chapter examines the claim of Earth's stability by looking at data pertaining to past variability of the Earth environment. The Gaia hypothesis proposes that life has had a hand on the tiller of Earth climate, ensuring stable equable climates throughout Earth history. The chapter argues differently. The data do not point to a constant environment, or to a cozy and hospitable one. In addition to the overall trend toward ever-icier climates over the last 100 million years, there is also compelling evidence that the tiller has on other occasions allowed climate to drift into dangerous states threatening to completely extinguish all life on Earth.

scholarly journals Earth Science Education as a Key Component of Education for Sustainability

2021 ◽  
Vol 13 (3) ◽  
pp. 1316
Author(s):  
Clara Vasconcelos ◽  
Nir Orion
Keyword(s):  
Science Education ◽  
Earth Science ◽  
Sustainable Use ◽  
Education For Sustainability ◽  
Scientific Concept ◽  
Earth System ◽  
Holistic View ◽  
Earth Science Education ◽  
The Earth ◽  
Life On Earth

Environmental insight has emerged as a new scientific concept which incorporates the understanding that the Earth is made up of interworking subsystems and the acceptance that humans must act in harmony with the Earth’s dynamic balanced cycle. This Earth system competency represents the highest level of knowing and understanding in the geosciences community. Humans have an important role as participative beings in the Earth’s subsystems, and they must therefore acknowledge that life on Earth depends on a geoethically responsible management of the Earth system. Yet, the world is far from achieving sustainable development, making the role of the Earth science education in promoting education for sustainability even more relevant. The Earth system approach to education is designed to be an effective learning tool for the development of the innovative concept of environmental insight. Through a holistic view of planet Earth, students realize that humans have the ability to enjoy a sustainable life on our planet while minimising detrimental environmental impacts. There is growing evidence that citizens value science and need to be informed about Earth system problems such as climate change, resource efficiency, pandemics, sustainable use of water resources, and how to protect bio-geodiversity. By moving away from both traditional practices and traditional perceptions, environmental insight and geoethics will lead towards an education for sustainability that provides the citizens of Earth with the tools they need to address the full complexity of its urgent environmental concerns.

Gaia and the Ghedeist

2019 ◽  
pp. 131-156
Author(s):  
Glenn A. Albrecht
Keyword(s):  
Indigenous Peoples ◽  
Earth System ◽  
Traditional Religions ◽  
Gaia Hypothesis ◽  
The Earth ◽  
Attachment To Place

The chapter reinforces the role of positive earth emotions by putting them all within the context of a secular land or earth 'spirituality'. Negative Earth emotions can only manifest themselves if humans have a fundamental attachment to place. The chapter forwards the concept of the 'Ghedeist' to explain the deepest and most meaningful place relationships people can have. Rather than rely on or appropriate such spiritual affinities to the Earth displayed by Indigenous peoples or traditional religions, this chapter builds the case for a newly formulated life-spirituality that is based on the Gaia hypothesis and earth system sciences. The chapter concludes that the triumph of positive earth emotions over the negative will be accomplished by the love of the Symbiocene as animated by the Ghedeist.

Quantifying the Pyrocene: How Important is Fire to Life on Earth?

2020 ◽  
Author(s):  
Claire Belcher
Keyword(s):  
Fire Regimes ◽  
Fire Frequency ◽  
Atmospheric Composition ◽  
Earth System ◽  
Atmospheric Conditions ◽  
Critical History ◽  
The Earth ◽  
Life On Earth ◽  
In Fire

<p>Fire and vegetation have a dual interaction with each other, whilst also both influencing the environment and atmosphere. For example, fire regimes are themselves controlled by atmospheric conditions, atmospheric composition, climate and the type of vegetation. Whilst, the effects of fires, the products and emissions they generate influence biogeochemical cycles and long-term Earth system processes through their impacts on nutrient cycles and by altering the composition and distribution of biomes. Hence fire is more than a simple agent of disturbance and has a multitude of complex feedbacks.</p><p>Wildfires have shaped our ecosystems and Earth system processes for some 420 million years. For example the presence of and changes in fire frequency and behaviour on evolutionary timescales has influenced the physiological traits of plants such that many ecologists have interpreted them as adaptations to fire. For example, serotiny in the Pine lineage is believed to have evolved millions of years ago in the Late Cretaceous period, where wildfires were both frequent and intense. Such traits seemingly continue to allow some plants to succeed in fire prone areas. However, humans have entirely altered ignition patterns, with some 95% of fires being started by man; we have altered the connectivity of fuels in landscapes, species composition and fuel structure. Yet we have limited understanding to what extent we have disrupted fire feedbacks to the Earth system. This lies in large part because we have not yet well understood what natural feedbacks fire has had on our planet throughout its history.</p><p>In this talk I will explore some of the critical history of fire and some of the processes that fire appears to regulate in order to pose the question - are fires a critical resource that secures the long-term balance of the Earth system that keeps our planet habitable to man?</p>

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