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51-403: In the present era, global environmental changes are both accelerating and changing Earth's systems into a state with no analogue in previous history. The Earth System is the unified set of physical, chemical, biological and social components, processes and interactions that together determine the state and dynamics of planet Earth, including its biota and its human occupants. Earth system science

102-572: 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 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

153-419: A mission to describe, model, and understand the Earth's climate system". Earth's climate system is a complex system with five interacting components: 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

204-576: A much lower condensation temperature than other materials that compose the terrestrial planets in the Solar System, such as iron and silicates. The region of the protoplanetary disk closest to the Sun was very hot early in the history of the Solar System, and it is not feasible that oceans of water condensed with the Earth as it formed. Further from the young Sun where temperatures were lower, water could condense and form icy planetesimals . The boundary of

255-470: A rock-vapor atmosphere around the young planet. The rock vapor would have condensed within two thousand years, leaving behind hot volatiles which probably resulted in a majority carbon dioxide atmosphere with hydrogen and water vapor . Afterward, liquid water oceans may have existed despite the surface temperature of 230 °C (446 °F) due to the increased atmospheric pressure of the CO 2 atmosphere. As

306-462: A third hypothesis, supported by evidence from molybdenum isotope ratios from a 2019 study, suggests that the Earth gained most of its water from the same interplanetary collision that caused the formation of the Moon. The evidence from 2019 shows that the molybdenum isotopic composition of the Earth's mantle originates from the outer Solar System, likely having brought water to Earth. The explanation

357-470: A wide diversity of deuterium-poor organic compounds further support this. Earth's current deuterium to hydrogen ratio also matches ancient eucrite chondrites, which originate from the asteroid Vesta in the outer asteroid belt. CI, CM, and eucrite chondrites are believed to have the same water content and isotope ratios as ancient icy protoplanets from the outer asteroid belt that later delivered water to Earth. A further asteroid particle study supported

408-513: Is a sub-discipline of earth system governance , itself a subfield of earth system sciences analyzed from a social sciences perspective. Origin of water on Earth The origin of water on Earth is the subject of a body of research in the fields of planetary science , astronomy , and astrobiology . Earth is unique among the rocky planets in the Solar System in having oceans of liquid water on its surface. Liquid water, which

459-524: Is estimated to be 1.37 × 10 kg, which is 0.023% of the total mass of Earth, 6.0 × 10 kg. An additional 5.0 × 10 kg of water is estimated to exist in ice, lakes, rivers, groundwater, and atmospheric water vapor. A significant amount of water is also stored in Earth's crust , mantle , and core . Unlike molecular H 2 O that is found on the surface, water in the interior exists primarily in hydrated minerals or as trace amounts of hydrogen bonded to oxygen atoms in anhydrous minerals. Hydrated silicates on

510-416: Is less affected by those processes. Analysis of subsurface hydrogen contained in recently released lava has been estimated to show that there was a 218 ‰ higher D/H ratio in the primordial Earth compared to the current ratio. No process is known that can decrease Earth's D/H ratio over time. This loss of the lighter isotope is one explanation for why Venus has such a high D/H ratio, as that planet's water

561-465: Is necessary for all known forms of life , continues to exist on the surface of Earth because the planet is at a far enough distance (known as the habitable zone ) from the Sun that it does not lose its water, but not so far that low temperatures cause all water on the planet to freeze. It was long thought that Earth's water did not originate from the planet's region of the protoplanetary disk . Instead, it

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612-467: Is particularly useful in the search for the origin of water on Earth. Hydrogen is the most abundant element in the universe, and its heavier isotope deuterium can sometimes take the place of a hydrogen atom in molecules like H 2 O. Most deuterium was created in the Big Bang or in supernovae, so its uneven distribution throughout the protosolar nebula was effectively "locked in" early in the formation of

663-529: Is that Theia , the planet said in the giant-impact hypothesis to have collided with Earth 4.5 billion years ago forming the Moon , may have originated in the outer Solar System rather than in the inner Solar System, bringing water and carbon-based materials with it. Isotopic ratios provide a unique "chemical fingerprint" that is used to compare Earth's water with reservoirs elsewhere in the Solar System. One such isotopic ratio, that of deuterium to hydrogen (D/H),

714-546: 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

765-416: Is the study of the Earth system, with an emphasis on observing, understanding and predicting global environmental changes involving interactions between land, atmosphere, water, ice, biosphere , societies, technologies and economies. This article about an international organization is a stub . You can help Misplaced Pages by expanding it . Earth system science Earth system science ( ESS )

816-501: The Kuiper belt (20-50 AU) and the Oort cloud (>5,000 AU), but have highly elliptical orbits which bring them into the inner solar system. Their icy composition and trajectories which bring them into the inner solar system make them a target for remote and in situ measurements of D/H ratios. It is implausible that Earth's water originated only from comets, since isotope measurements of

867-489: 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 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 ,

918-615: The Nuvvuagittuq Greenstone Belt , Quebec, Canada, rocks dated at 3.8 billion years old by one study and 4.28 billion years old by another show evidence of the presence of water at these ages. If oceans existed earlier than this, any geological evidence has yet to be discovered (which may be because such potential evidence has been destroyed by geological processes like crustal recycling ). More recently, in August 2020, researchers reported that sufficient water to fill

969-428: 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,

1020-543: 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 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

1071-465: 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 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

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1122-402: The Solar System. By studying the different isotopic ratios of Earth and of other icy bodies in the Solar System, the likely origins of Earth's water can be researched. The deuterium to hydrogen ratio for ocean water on Earth is known very precisely to be (1.5576 ± 0.0005) × 10 . This value represents a mixture of all of the sources that contributed to Earth's reservoirs, and is used to identify

1173-517: The abundances of its nine stable isotopes in the modern atmosphere reveal that the Earth lost at least one ocean of water early in its history, between the Hadean and Archean eons. Any water on Earth during the latter part of its accretion would have been disrupted by the Moon-forming impact (~4.5 billion years ago), which likely vaporized much of Earth's crust and upper mantle and created

1224-424: The atmosphere continually, but isotopic ratios of heavier noble gases in the modern atmosphere suggest that even the heavier elements in the early atmosphere were subject to significant losses. In particular, xenon is useful for calculations of water loss over time. Not only is it a noble gas (and therefore is not removed from the atmosphere through chemical reactions with other elements), but comparisons between

1275-402: 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 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

1326-599: 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 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

1377-558: The cooling continued, most CO 2 was removed from the atmosphere by subduction and dissolution in ocean water, but levels oscillated wildly as new surface and mantle cycles appeared. Geological evidence also helps constrain the time frame for liquid water existing on Earth. A sample of pillow basalt (a type of rock formed during an underwater eruption) was recovered from the Isua Greenstone Belt and provides evidence that water existed on Earth 3.8 billion years ago. In

1428-400: The current understanding of Earth's formation allows for less than 1% of Earth's material accreting after the Moon formed, implying that the material accreted later must have been very water-rich. Models of early Solar System dynamics have shown that icy asteroids could have been delivered to the inner Solar System (including Earth) during this period if Jupiter migrated closer to the Sun. Yet

1479-570: The deuterium to hydrogen (D/H) ratio in comets Halley , Hyakutake , Hale–Bopp , 2002T7 , and Tuttle , yield values approximately twice that of oceanic water. Using this cometary D/H ratio, models predict that less than 10% of Earth's water was supplied from comets. Other, shorter period comets (<20 years) called Jupiter family comets likely originate from the Kuiper belt, but have had their orbital paths influenced by gravitational interactions with Jupiter or Neptune. 67P/Churyumov–Gerasimenko

1530-426: The following description: "Earth System science embraces chemistry, physics, biology, mathematics and applied sciences in transcending disciplinary boundaries to treat 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

1581-538: The formation of Earth. This presents somewhat of a paradox, as the cool early Earth hypothesis suggests temperatures were cold enough to freeze water between about 4.4 billion and 4.0 billion years ago. Other studies of zircons found in Australian Hadean rock point to the existence of plate tectonics as early as 4 billion years ago. If true, that implies that rather than a hot, molten surface and an atmosphere full of carbon dioxide, early Earth's surface

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1632-433: 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 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

1683-412: 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, 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

1734-415: The oceans may have always been on the Earth since the beginning of the planet's formation . Unlike rocks, minerals called zircons are highly resistant to weathering and geological processes and so are used to understand conditions on the very early Earth. Mineralogical evidence from zircons has shown that liquid water and an atmosphere must have existed 4.404 ± 0.008 billion years ago, very soon after

1785-523: The oldest known carbonaceous chondrite meteorites and meteorites from Vesta , both of which originate from the Solar System's asteroid belt . It is also supported by studies of osmium isotope ratios, which suggest that a sizeable quantity of water was contained in the material that Earth accreted early on. Measurements of the chemical composition of lunar samples collected by the Apollo 15 and 17 missions further support this, and indicate that water

1836-470: The outer edges of the asteroid belt . One factor in estimating when water appeared on Earth is that water is continually being lost to space. H 2 O molecules in the atmosphere are broken up by photolysis , and the resulting free hydrogen atoms can sometimes escape Earth's gravitational pull. When the Earth was younger and less massive , water would have been lost to space more easily. Lighter elements like hydrogen and helium are expected to leak from

1887-557: The primary source of Earth's water. Carbonaceous chondrites —which are a subclass of the oldest meteorites in the Solar System—have isotopic levels most similar to ocean water. The CI and CM subclasses of carbonaceous chondrites specifically have hydrogen and nitrogen isotope levels that closely match Earth's seawater, which suggests water in these meteorites could be the source of Earth's oceans. Two 4.5 billion-year-old meteorites found on Earth that contained liquid water alongside

1938-402: The prominent place given to climate change in the early NASA reports discussed above. The Earth's climate system 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

1989-406: The region where ice could form in the early Solar System is known as the frost line (or snow line), and is located in the modern asteroid belt, between about 2.7 and 3.1 astronomical units (AU) from the Sun. It is therefore necessary that objects forming beyond the frost line–such as comets , trans-Neptunian objects , and water-rich meteoroids (protoplanets)–delivered water to Earth. However,

2040-403: 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

2091-419: The source or sources of Earth's water. The ratio of deuterium to hydrogen has increased over the Earth's lifetime between 2 and 9 times the ratio at the Earth's origin, because the lighter isotope is more likely to leak into space in atmospheric loss processes . Hydrogen beneath the Earth's crust is thought to have a D/H ratio more representative of the original D/H ratio upon formation of the Earth, because it

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2142-562: The successful development and advancement of Earth System science research. As just one example of the centrality of climatology to 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

2193-415: The surface transport water into the mantle at convergent plate boundaries , where oceanic crust is subducted underneath continental crust . While it is difficult to estimate the total water content of the mantle due to limited samples, approximately three times the mass of the Earth's oceans could be stored there. Similarly, the Earth's core could contain four to five oceans' worth of hydrogen. Water has

2244-537: The theory that a large source of earth's water has come from hydrogen atoms carried on particles in the solar wind which combine with oxygen on asteroids and then arrive on earth in space dust. Using atom probe tomography the study found hydroxide and water molecules on the surface of a single grain from particles retrieved from the asteroid 25143 Itokawa by the Japanese space probe Hayabusa . Comets are kilometer-sized bodies made of dust and ice that originate from

2295-432: The timing of this delivery is still in question. One hypothesis claims that Earth accreted (gradually grew by accumulation of) icy planetesimals about 4.5 billion years ago, when it was 60 to 90% of its current size. In this scenario, Earth was able to retain water in some form throughout accretion and major impact events. This hypothesis is supported by similarities in the abundance and the isotope ratios of water between

2346-599: 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 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)

2397-487: 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 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

2448-492: Was already present on Earth before the Moon was formed. One problem with this hypothesis is that the noble gas isotope ratios of Earth's atmosphere are different from those of its mantle, which suggests they were formed from different sources. To explain this observation, a so-called "late veneer" theory has been proposed in which water was delivered much later in Earth's history, after the Moon-forming impact. However,

2499-420: Was hypothesized water and other volatiles must have been delivered to Earth from the outer Solar System later in its history. Recent research, however, indicates that hydrogen inside the Earth played a role in the formation of the ocean. The two ideas are not mutually exclusive, as there is also evidence that water was delivered to Earth by impacts from icy planetesimals similar in composition to asteroids in

2550-414: Was much as it is today (in terms of thermal insulation ). The action of plate tectonics traps vast amounts of CO 2 , thereby reducing greenhouse effects , leading to a much cooler surface temperature and the formation of solid rock and liquid water. While the majority of Earth's surface is covered by oceans, those oceans make up just a small fraction of the mass of the planet. The mass of Earth's oceans

2601-531: Was vaporized during the runaway greenhouse effect and subsequently lost much of its hydrogen to space. Because Earth's D/H ratio has increased significantly over time, the D/H ratio of water originally delivered to the planet was lower than at present. This is consistent with a scenario in which a significant proportion of the water on Earth was already present during the planet's early evolution. Multiple geochemical studies have concluded that asteroids are most likely

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