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54-612: Earth system science ( ESS ) is the application of systems science to the Earth . In particular, it considers interactions and 'feedbacks', through material and energy fluxes, between the Earth's sub-systems' cycles, processes and "spheres"— atmosphere , hydrosphere , cryosphere , geosphere , pedosphere , lithosphere , biosphere , and even the magnetosphere —as well as the impact of human societies on these components. At its broadest scale, Earth system science brings together researchers across both

108-413: A common software infrastructure shared by all U.S. climate researchers, and holding an annual climate modeling forum, the report found. Cloud-resolving climate models are nowadays run on high intensity super-computers which have a high power consumption and thus cause CO 2 emissions.  They require exascale computing (billion billion – i.e., a quintillion – calculations per second). For example,

162-419: A day; the ocean is MOM-3 ( Modular Ocean Model ) with a 3.75° × 3.75° grid and 24 vertical levels. Box models are simplified versions of complex systems, reducing them to boxes (or reservoirs ) linked by fluxes. The boxes are assumed to be mixed homogeneously. Within a given box, the concentration of any chemical species is therefore uniform. However, the abundance of a species within a given box may vary as

216-405: A function of elevation (i.e. relative humidity distribution). This has been shown by refining the zero dimension model in the vertical to a one-dimensional radiative-convective model which considers two processes of energy transport: Radiative-convective models have advantages over simpler models and also lay a foundation for more complex models. They can estimate both surface temperature and

270-573: A function of time due to the input to (or loss from) the box or due to the production, consumption or decay of this species within the box. Simple box models, i.e. box model with a small number of boxes whose properties (e.g. their volume) do not change with time, are often useful to derive analytical formulas describing the dynamics and steady-state abundance of a species. More complex box models are usually solved using numerical techniques. Box models are used extensively to model environmental systems or ecosystems and in studies of ocean circulation and

324-552: A robust and unambiguous picture of significant climate warming in response to increasing greenhouse gases." The World Climate Research Programme (WCRP), hosted by the World Meteorological Organization (WMO), coordinates research activities on climate modelling worldwide. A 2012 U.S. National Research Council report discussed how the large and diverse U.S. climate modeling enterprise could evolve to become more unified. Efficiencies could be gained by developing

378-544: A variety of areas, such as psychology, biology, medicine, communication, business, technology, computer science, engineering, and social sciences. Themes commonly stressed in system science are (a) holistic view, (b) interaction between a system and its embedding environment , and (c) complex (often subtle) trajectories of dynamic behavior that sometimes are stable (and thus reinforcing), while at various ' boundary conditions ' can become wildly unstable (and thus destructive). Concerns about Earth-scale biosphere/geosphere dynamics

432-413: Is where The constant parameters include The constant π r 2 {\displaystyle \pi \,r^{2}} can be factored out, giving a nildimensional equation for the equilibrium where The remaining variable parameters which are specific to the planet include This very simple model is quite instructive. For example, it shows the temperature sensitivity to changes in

486-428: Is a transdisciplinary field that is concerned with understanding simple and complex systems in nature and society , which leads to the advancements of formal, natural, social, and applied attributions throughout engineering , technology and science , itself. To systems scientists, the world can be understood as a system of systems. The field aims to develop transdisciplinary foundations that are applicable in

540-421: Is a prime example of an emergent property of the whole planetary system, that is, one which cannot be fully understood without regarding it as a single integrated entity. It is also a system where human impacts have been growing rapidly in recent decades, lending immense importance to the successful development and advancement of Earth System science research. As just one example of the centrality of climatology to

594-630: Is a type of climate model. It employs a mathematical model of the general circulation of a planetary atmosphere or ocean. It uses the Navier–Stokes equations on a rotating sphere with thermodynamic terms for various energy sources ( radiation , latent heat ). These equations are the basis for computer programs used to simulate the Earth's atmosphere or oceans. Atmospheric and oceanic GCMs (AGCM and OGCM ) are key components along with sea ice and land-surface components. GCMs and global climate models are used for weather forecasting , understanding

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648-453: Is an example of the nature of problems to which systems science seeks to contribute meaningful insights. The systems sciences are a broad array of fields. One way of conceiving of these is in three groups: fields that have developed systems ideas primarily through theory; those that have done so primarily through practical engagements with problem situations; and those that have applied ideas for other disciplines. The soft systems methodology

702-535: Is closely associated with the RAND corporation . Systemic design integrates methodologies from systems thinking with advanced design practices to address complex, multi-stakeholder situations. Climate model Numerical climate models (or climate system models ) are mathematical models that can simulate the interactions of important drivers of climate . These drivers are the atmosphere , oceans , land surface and ice . Scientists use climate models to study

756-542: Is considerable confidence that climate models provide credible quantitative estimates of future climate change, particularly at continental scales and above. This confidence comes from the foundation of the models in accepted physical principles and from their ability to reproduce observed features of current climate and past climate changes. Confidence in model estimates is higher for some climate variables (e.g., temperature) than for others (e.g., precipitation). Over several decades of development, models have consistently provided

810-400: Is still useful in that the laws of physics are applicable in a bulk fashion to unknown objects, or in an appropriate lumped manner if some major properties of the object are known. For example, astronomers know that most planets in our own solar system feature some kind of solid/liquid surface surrounded by a gaseous atmosphere. A very simple model of the radiative equilibrium of the Earth

864-544: The Frontier exascale supercomputer consumes 29 MW. It can simulate a year’s worth of climate at cloud resolving scales in a day. Techniques that could lead to energy savings, include for example: "reducing floating point precision computation; developing machine learning algorithms to avoid unnecessary computations; and creating a new generation of scalable numerical algorithms that would enable higher throughput in terms of simulated years per wall clock day." Climate models on

918-576: The NOAA Geophysical Fluid Dynamics Laboratory AOGCMs represent the pinnacle of complexity in climate models and internalise as many processes as possible. However, they are still under development and uncertainties remain. They may be coupled to models of other processes, such as the carbon cycle , so as to better model feedback effects. Such integrated multi-system models are sometimes referred to as either "earth system models" or "global climate models." Simulation of

972-425: The atmosphere (air), the hydrosphere (water), the cryosphere (ice and permafrost), the lithosphere (earth's upper rocky layer) and the biosphere (living things). Climate is the statistical characterization of the climate system. It represents the average weather , typically over a period of 30 years, and is determined by a combination of processes, such as ocean currents and wind patterns. Circulation in

1026-683: The carbon and nitrogen cycles . Earth System science can be studied at a postgraduate level at some universities. In general education, the American Geophysical Union , in cooperation with the Keck Geology Consortium and with support from five divisions within the National Science Foundation , convened a workshop in 1996, "to define common educational goals among all disciplines in the Earth sciences". In its report, participants noted that, "The fields that make up

1080-542: The carbon cycle . They are instances of a multi-compartment model . In 1961 Henry Stommel was the first to use a simple 2-box model to study factors that influence ocean circulation. In 1956, Norman Phillips developed a mathematical model that realistically depicted monthly and seasonal patterns in the troposphere. This was the first successful climate model. Several groups then began working to create general circulation models . The first general circulation climate model combined oceanic and atmospheric processes and

1134-407: The climate , and forecasting climate change . Atmospheric GCMs (AGCMs) model the atmosphere and impose sea surface temperatures as boundary conditions. Coupled atmosphere-ocean GCMs (AOGCMs, e.g. HadCM3 , EdGCM , GFDL CM2.X , ARPEGE-Climat) combine the two models. The first general circulation climate model that combined both oceanic and atmospheric processes was developed in the late 1960s at

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1188-427: The natural and social sciences, from fields including ecology , economics , geography , geology , glaciology , meteorology , oceanography , climatology , paleontology , sociology , and space science . Like the broader subject of systems science , Earth system science assumes a holistic view of the dynamic interaction between the Earth's spheres and their many constituent subsystems fluxes and processes,

1242-477: The Earth System Science Committee was formed in 1983. The earliest reports of NASA's ESSC, Earth System Science: Overview (1986), and the book-length Earth System Science: A Closer View (1988), constitute a major landmark in the formal development of Earth system science. Early works discussing Earth system science, like these NASA reports, generally emphasized the increasing human impacts on

1296-473: The Earth System, which include: For millennia, humans have speculated how the physical and living elements on the surface of the Earth combine, with gods and goddesses frequently posited to embody specific elements. The notion that the Earth, itself, is alive was a regular theme of Greek philosophy and religion. Early scientific interpretations of the Earth system began in the field of geology , initially in

1350-584: The Earth and space sciences are currently undergoing a major advancement that promotes understanding the Earth as a number of interrelated systems". Recognizing the rise of this systems approach , the workshop report recommended that an Earth System science curriculum be developed with support from the National Science Foundation. In 2000, the Earth System Science Education Alliance (ESSEA) was begun, and currently includes

1404-448: The Earth as an integrated system. It seeks a deeper understanding of the physical, chemical, biological and human interactions that determine the past, current and future states of the Earth. Earth System science provides a physical basis for understanding the world in which we live and upon which humankind seeks to achieve sustainability". Earth System science has articulated four overarching, definitive and critically important features of

1458-443: The Earth system as a primary driver for the need of greater integration among the life and geo-sciences, making the origins of Earth system science parallel to the beginnings of global change studies and programs. Climatology and climate change have been central to Earth System science since its inception, as evidenced by the prominent place given to climate change in the early NASA reports discussed above. The Earth's climate system

1512-488: The Middle East and China, and largely focused on aspects such as the age of the Earth and the large-scale processes involved in mountain and ocean formation. As geology developed as a science , understanding of the interplay of different facets of the Earth system increased, leading to the inclusion of factors such as the Earth's interior , planetary geology , living systems and Earth-like worlds . In many respects,

1566-563: The Sun is in the form of short wave electromagnetic radiation , chiefly visible and short-wave (near) infrared . The outgoing energy is in the form of long wave (far) infrared electromagnetic energy. These processes are part of the greenhouse effect . Climate models vary in complexity. For example, a simple radiant heat transfer model treats the Earth as a single point and averages outgoing energy. This can be expanded vertically (radiative-convective models) and horizontally. More complex models are

1620-407: The atmosphere and oceans transports heat from the tropical regions to regions that receive less energy from the Sun. Solar radiation is the main driving force for this circulation. The water cycle also moves energy throughout the climate system. In addition, certain chemical elements are constantly moving between the components of the climate system. Two examples for these biochemical cycles are

1674-490: The atmosphere in the late 19th century. Other EBMs similarly seek an economical description of surface temperatures by applying the conservation of energy constraint to individual columns of the Earth-atmosphere system. Essential features of EBMs include their relative conceptual simplicity and their ability to sometimes produce analytical solutions . Some models account for effects of ocean, land, or ice features on

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1728-504: The basic laws of physics , fluid motion , and chemistry . Scientists divide the planet into a 3-dimensional grid and apply the basic equations to those grids. Atmospheric models calculate winds , heat transfer , radiation , relative humidity , and surface hydrology within each grid and evaluate interactions with neighboring points. These are coupled with oceanic models to simulate climate variability and change that occurs on different timescales due to shifting ocean currents and

1782-413: The climate system in full 3-D space and time was impractical prior to the establishment of large computational facilities starting in the 1960s. In order to begin to understand which factors may have changed Earth's paleoclimate states, the constituent and dimensional complexities of the system needed to be reduced. A simple quantitative model that balanced incoming/outgoing energy was first developed for

1836-465: The coupled atmosphere–ocean– sea ice global climate models . These types of models solve the full equations for mass transfer, energy transfer and radiant exchange. In addition, other types of models can be interlinked. For example Earth System Models include also land use as well as land use changes . This allows researchers to predict the interactions between climate and ecosystems . Climate models are systems of differential equations based on

1890-416: The dynamics of the climate system and to make projections of future climate and of climate change . Climate models can also be qualitative (i.e. not numerical) models and contain narratives, largely descriptive, of possible futures. Climate models take account of incoming energy from the Sun as well as outgoing energy from Earth. An imbalance results in a change in temperature . The incoming energy from

1944-423: The effect of ice-albedo feedback on global climate sensitivity has been investigated using a one-dimensional radiative-convective climate model. The zero-dimensional model may be expanded to consider the energy transported horizontally in the atmosphere. This kind of model may well be zonally averaged. This model has the advantage of allowing a rational dependence of local albedo and emissivity on temperature –

1998-568: The field, leading American climatologist Michael E. Mann is the Director of one of the earliest centers for Earth System science research, the Earth System Science Center at Pennsylvania State University, and its mission statement reads, "the Earth System Science Center (ESSC) maintains a mission to describe, model, and understand the Earth's climate system". Earth's climate system is a complex system with five interacting components:

2052-456: The foundational concepts of Earth System science can be seen in the natural philosophy 19th century geographer Alexander von Humboldt . In the 20th century, Vladimir Vernadsky (1863–1945) saw the functioning of the biosphere as a geological force generating a dynamic disequilibrium, which in turn promoted the diversity of life. In parallel, the field of systems science was developing across numerous other scientific fields, driven in part by

2106-415: The increasing availability and power of computers , and leading to the development of climate models that began to allow the detailed and interacting simulations of the Earth's weather and climate . Subsequent extension of these models has led to the development of "Earth system models" (ESMs) that include facets such as the cryosphere and the biosphere. In the 1980s, where a NASA committee called

2160-412: The much larger heat storage capacity of the global ocean. External drivers of change may also be applied. Including an ice-sheet model better accounts for long term effects such as sea level rise . There are three major types of institution where climate models are developed, implemented and used: Big climate models are essential but they are not perfect. Attention still needs to be given to

2214-513: The nature of questions asked and the pertinent time scales, there are, on the one extreme, conceptual, more inductive models, and, on the other extreme, general circulation models operating at the highest spatial and temporal resolution currently feasible. Models of intermediate complexity bridge the gap. One example is the Climber-3 model. Its atmosphere is a 2.5-dimensional statistical-dynamical model with 7.5° × 22.5° resolution and time step of half

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2268-1448: The participation of 40+ institutions, with over 3,000 teachers having completed an ESSEA course as of fall 2009". The concept of earth system law (still in its infancy as per 2021) is a sub-discipline of earth system governance , itself a subfield of earth system sciences analyzed from a social sciences perspective. Systems science Social network analysis Small-world networks Centrality Motifs Graph theory Scaling Robustness Systems biology Dynamic networks Evolutionary computation Genetic algorithms Genetic programming Artificial life Machine learning Evolutionary developmental biology Artificial intelligence Evolutionary robotics Reaction–diffusion systems Partial differential equations Dissipative structures Percolation Cellular automata Spatial ecology Self-replication Conversation theory Entropy Feedback Goal-oriented Homeostasis Information theory Operationalization Second-order cybernetics Self-reference System dynamics Systems science Systems thinking Sensemaking Variety Ordinary differential equations Phase space Attractors Population dynamics Chaos Multistability Bifurcation Rational choice theory Bounded rationality Systems science , also referred to as systems research , or, simply, systems ,

2322-531: The planet's surface, have an average emissivity of about 0.5 (which must be reduced by the fourth power of the ratio of cloud absolute temperature to average surface absolute temperature) and an average cloud temperature of about 258 K (−15 °C; 5 °F). Taking all this properly into account results in an effective earth emissivity of about 0.64 (earth average temperature 285 K (12 °C; 53 °F)). Dimensionless models have also been constructed with functionally separated atmospheric layers from

2376-513: The poles can be allowed to be icy and the equator warm – but the lack of true dynamics means that horizontal transports have to be specified. Early examples include research of Mikhail Budyko and William D. Sellers who worked on the Budyko-Sellers model . This work also showed the role of positive feedback in the climate system and has been considered foundational for the energy balance models since its publication in 1969. Depending on

2430-461: The radiative heat transfer processes which underlie the greenhouse effect. Quantification of this phenomenon using a version of the one-layer model was first published by Svante Arrhenius in year 1896. Water vapor is a main determinant of the emissivity of Earth's atmosphere. It both influences the flows of radiation and is influenced by convective flows of heat in a manner that is consistent with its equilibrium concentration and temperature as

2484-437: The real world (what is happening and why). The global models are essential to assimilate all the observations, especially from space (satellites) and produce comprehensive analyses of what is happening, and then they can be used to make predictions/projections. Simple models have a role to play that is widely abused and fails to recognize the simplifications such as not including a water cycle. A general circulation model (GCM)

2538-563: The resulting spatial organization and time evolution of these systems, and their variability, stability and instability. Subsets of Earth System science include systems geology and systems ecology , and many aspects of Earth System science are fundamental to the subjects of physical geography and climate science . The Science Education Resource Center , Carleton College , offers the following description: "Earth System science embraces chemistry, physics, biology, mathematics and applied sciences in transcending disciplinary boundaries to treat

2592-506: The solar constant, Earth albedo, or effective Earth emissivity. The effective emissivity also gauges the strength of the atmospheric greenhouse effect , since it is the ratio of the thermal emissions escaping to space versus those emanating from the surface. The calculated emissivity can be compared to available data. Terrestrial surface emissivities are all in the range of 0.96 to 0.99 (except for some small desert areas which may be as low as 0.7). Clouds, however, which cover about half of

2646-494: The surface budget. Others include interactions with parts of the water cycle or carbon cycle . A variety of these and other reduced system models can be useful for specialized tasks that supplement GCMs, particularly to bridge gaps between simulation and understanding. Zero-dimensional models consider Earth as a point in space, analogous to the pale blue dot viewed by Voyager 1 or an astronomer's view of very distant objects. This dimensionless view while highly limited

2700-595: The surface. The simplest of these is the zero-dimensional, one-layer model , which may be readily extended to an arbitrary number of atmospheric layers. The surface and atmospheric layer(s) are each characterized by a corresponding temperature and emissivity value, but no thickness. Applying radiative equilibrium (i.e conservation of energy) at the interfaces between layers produces a set of coupled equations which are solvable. Layered models produce temperatures that better estimate those observed for Earth's surface and atmospheric levels. They likewise further illustrate

2754-440: The temperature variation with elevation in a more realistic manner. They also simulate the observed decline in upper atmospheric temperature and rise in surface temperature when trace amounts of other non-condensible greenhouse gases such as carbon dioxide are included. Other parameters are sometimes included to simulate localized effects in other dimensions and to address the factors that move energy about Earth. For example,

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2808-683: Was developed in England by academics at the University of Lancaster Systems Department through a ten-year action research programme. The main contributor is Peter Checkland (born 18 December 1930, in Birmingham, UK), a British management scientist and emeritus professor of systems at Lancaster University. Systems analysis branch of systems science that analyzes systems, the interactions within those systems, or interaction with its environment, often prior to their automation as computer models. Systems analysis

2862-553: Was developed in the late 1960s at the Geophysical Fluid Dynamics Laboratory , a component of the U.S. National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration . By 1975, Manabe and Wetherald had developed a three-dimensional global climate model that gave a roughly accurate representation of the current climate. Doubling CO 2 in the model's atmosphere gave a roughly 2 °C rise in global temperature. Several other kinds of computer models gave similar results: it

2916-513: Was impossible to make a model that gave something resembling the actual climate and not have the temperature rise when the CO 2 concentration was increased. The Coupled Model Intercomparison Project (CMIP) has been a leading effort to foster improvements in GCMs and climate change understanding since 1995. The IPCC stated in 2010 it has increased confidence in forecasts coming from climate models: "There

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