The Shock of the Earth

2020 ◽  
pp. 93-114
Author(s):  
Jason Groves
Keyword(s):  
Earth System ◽  
Porous Rock ◽  
The Earth ◽  
System P

This chapter unearths Walter Benjamin’s dispersed remarks on a figure of shock, the Erschütterung, in order to mark a shift from theorizing sudden disturbances toward registering a deeper time of collapse. The resonant asphalt of Berlin’s Tiergarten, the porous rock of Naples, the uneven paving stones of Paris, the unregulated ground of Marseilles’s public squares, and the rocky paths of Ibiza’s hills become the locus of a shocking experience whose theorization offers an aesthetics of and for the mineral imaginary. Benjamin’s critical and literary elaborations of this form of shock, which evinces an astonishing sensitivity both to the unsettled earth underfoot and planetary irregularities, offer a way to figure the sense of disorientation shared by Tieck, Goethe, and Stifter as well as that of a contemporary epoch facing a breakdown of the Earth system.

4. The Great Acceleration

2018 ◽  
pp. 52-74
Author(s):  
Erle C. Ellis
Keyword(s):  
Environmental Change ◽  
Global Environmental Change ◽  
System Level ◽  
Earth System ◽  
System A ◽  
The Earth ◽  
System P ◽  
Global Environmental ◽  
Earth’S Climate ◽  
Great Acceleration

The challenge for the International Geosphere-Biosphere Programme (IGBP) in 1999 was how to integrate the evidence of humans transforming Earth’s functioning as a system into a coherent overview of global environmental change. The IGBP report Global Change and the Earth System: A Planet Under Pressure (2004) identified a dramatic mid-20th-century step-change in anthropogenic global environmental change, which would come to be called ‘The Great Acceleration’. ‘The Great Acceleration’ outlines the complex, multi-causal, system-level set of processes that have altered the Earth system, from domestication of land to human alterations of the atmosphere, hydrosphere, and biosphere. It also discusses tipping points that result in relatively rapid, non-linear, and potentially irreversible ‘step-changes’ in Earth’s climate system.

Planetary justice

2018 ◽  
pp. 58-81
Author(s):  
John S. Dryzek ◽  
Jonathan Pickering
Keyword(s):  
Social Values ◽  
Core Values ◽  
Future Generations ◽  
Earth System ◽  
Marginalized Groups ◽  
Societal Value ◽  
The Earth ◽  
System P ◽  
Distribution Of Resources

Reflexivity requires the capacity to reconsider core values: notably justice, which many people think is the most important societal value. Injustice looms large in an unstable Earth system, as pre-existing injustices are intensified and new ones emerge. Against those who think that the Anthropocene overrides or ignores justice by invoking ideas of emergency or by blaming humans as a whole for our predicament, this chapter shows how justice itself can be productively reimagined for the Anthropocene. The resultant planetary justice can incorporate traditional concerns about distribution of resources across rich and poor groups, recognition of the standing of historically marginalized groups, and the need to alleviate poverty. But planetary justice is much more imaginative in how it integrates justice toward future generations, non-humans, and the Earth system itself. The continuing vitality of core social values such as justice depends on their ability to co-evolve with a changing Earth system.

2. Earth system

2018 ◽  
pp. 16-33
Author(s):  
Erle C. Ellis
Keyword(s):  
Human Impact ◽  
Earth System ◽  
Causal Mechanisms ◽  
The Earth ◽  
System P ◽  
Lynn Margulis ◽  
Induce Change ◽  
James Lovelock

To confirm that humans have altered Earth’s functioning as a system, the causal mechanisms behind these alterations must be demonstrated. Only through a robust understanding of Earth as a system—its fundamental components, their interactions, and most importantly, the processes that keep the Earth system stable or induce change—is it possible to establish the causes of changes in the Earth system. ‘Earth system’ considers the key work of scientists such as Eduard Suess, Vladimir Vernadsky, Carl Sagan, James Lovelock, Lynn Margulis, David Keeling, and Paul Crutzen and their attempts to explain the dynamics of Earth as a system, the importance of the biosphere, and human impact on our planet.

Introduction

2019 ◽  
pp. 1-15
Author(s):  
Han Dolman
Keyword(s):  
Global Carbon Cycle ◽  
Biogeochemical Cycles ◽  
Earth System ◽  
Geological Time ◽  
The Earth ◽  
System P ◽  
Time Periods ◽  
Global Carbon ◽  
Gas Effect

This chapter discusses the fundamental aspects of biogeochemical cycles and their interactions with climate. It describes the context of the Earth system, from the geological cycles to the current climate. It also describes the organic and geological part of the global carbon cycle. Feedbacks are shown to comprise a key component of the Earth system, keeping it stable over geological time periods. Further examples of the interactions between biogeochemical cycles and climate include the rise of oxygen on the planet, the special position Earth takes in having water in liquid, gas and frozen forms, and the role of the greenhouse gas effect in maintaining this. The chapter also introduces the concepts of steady state and mean residence time and discusses non-linearity in the Earth system.

Editorial: Fire in the Earth System

PAGES news ◽  
2010 ◽  
Vol 18 (2) ◽  
pp. 55-57 ◽  
Author(s):  
Cathy Whitlock ◽  
Willy Tinner
Keyword(s):  
Earth System ◽  
The Earth

SPIES AND BLOGGERS: NEW SYNTHETIC BIOLOGY TOOLS TO UNDERSTAND MICROBIAL PROCESSES IN THE EARTH SYSTEM

2017 ◽  
Author(s):  
Caroline A. Masiello ◽  
◽  
Jonathan J. Silberg ◽  
Hsiao-Ying Cheng ◽  
Ilenne Del Valle ◽  
...  
Keyword(s):  
Synthetic Biology ◽  
Microbial Processes ◽  
Earth System ◽  
The Earth

scholarly journals High and specific diversity of protists in the deep-sea basins dominated by diplonemids, kinetoplastids, ciliates and foraminiferans

2021 ◽  
Vol 4 (1) ◽  
Author(s):  
Alexandra Schoenle ◽  
Manon Hohlfeld ◽  
Karoline Hermanns ◽  
Frédéric Mahé ◽  
Colomban de Vargas ◽  
...  
Keyword(s):  
Carbon Cycling ◽  
Deep Sea ◽  
Trophic Levels ◽  
Earth System ◽  
Parasitic Species ◽  
Unicellular Eukaryotes ◽  
The Earth ◽  
Dna Metabarcoding ◽  
Global Carbon ◽  
Pelagic Communities

AbstractHeterotrophic protists (unicellular eukaryotes) form a major link from bacteria and algae to higher trophic levels in the sunlit ocean. Their role on the deep seafloor, however, is only fragmentarily understood, despite their potential key function for global carbon cycling. Using the approach of combined DNA metabarcoding and cultivation-based surveys of 11 deep-sea regions, we show that protist communities, mostly overlooked in current deep-sea foodweb models, are highly specific, locally diverse and have little overlap to pelagic communities. Besides traditionally considered foraminiferans, tiny protists including diplonemids, kinetoplastids and ciliates were genetically highly diverse considerably exceeding the diversity of metazoans. Deep-sea protists, including many parasitic species, represent thus one of the most diverse biodiversity compartments of the Earth system, forming an essential link to metazoans.

scholarly journals Applicability of NGGM near-real time simulations in flood detection

2019 ◽  
Vol 9 (1) ◽  
pp. 111-126
Author(s):  
A. F. Purkhauser ◽  
J. A. Koch ◽  
R. Pail
Keyword(s):  
European Space Agency ◽  
Earth System ◽  
The Earth ◽  
Future Mission ◽  
Space Agency ◽  
Flood Detection ◽  
The One ◽  
Real Time Simulations ◽  
Grace Mission ◽  
Gravity Mission

Abstract The GRACE mission has demonstrated a tremendous potential for observing mass changes in the Earth system from space for climate research and the observation of climate change. Future mission should on the one hand extend the already existing time series and also provide higher spatial and temporal resolution that is required to fulfil all needs placed on a future mission. To analyse the applicability of such a Next Generation Gravity Mission (NGGM) concept regarding hydrological applications, two GRACE-FO-type pairs in Bender formation are analysed. The numerical closed loop simulations with a realistic noise assumption are based on the short arc approach and make use of the Wiese approach, enabling a self-de-aliasing of high-frequency atmospheric and oceanic signals, and a NRT approach for a short latency. Numerical simulations for future gravity mission concepts are based on geophysical models, representing the time-variable gravity field. First tests regarding the usability of the hydrology component contained in the Earth System Model (ESM) by the European Space Agency (ESA) for the analysis regarding a possible flood monitoring and detection showed a clear signal in a third of the analysed flood cases. Our analysis of selected cases found that detection of floods was clearly possible with the reconstructed AOHIS/HIS signal in 20% of the tested examples, while in 40% of the cases a peak was visible but not clearly recognisable.

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