Assignment #1 Approximately 1/3 of the class completed assignment - some didn’t give their names with their - some only sent to one of us - some didn’t include a word document - there were a few mis-assignments of discoveries (not a big deal as these answers were supposed to be off the top of your head, not researched)

Global Change Both natural and anthropogenic Occurs on multiple times scales days, seasons, decades, centuries, millennia Requires a “whole system” approach, e.g. carbon

Understanding global change requires an interdisciplinary approach Subjects/ Disciplines Geology Biology/Ecology Oceanography Geography Meteorology Anthropology/Political Science The Earth System is composed of subsystems Lithosphere (or Geosphere) Hydrosphere Atmosphere Biosphere Cryosphere Exosphere Anthrosphere

And these subsystems are extremely variable… These are just examples of terrestrial systems; The ocean has similar variability

Time scales of cyclic and noncyclic change History of the Earth billion years Tectonic (Wilson) cycles - 100's of millions of years Orbital (Milankovic) cycles - 10's to 100,000’s of years Oceanic cycles 's of years Solar and meteoric cycles - 10's to 100's of years El Nino to seasonal cycles - <1 to several years Diurnal cycles or shorter - ~ 24 hours

Recap. Understanding global change is understanding how the earth system functions. This requires - Information from many disciplines Consideration of different sub cycles Consideration of different time scales Consideration of different landscapes or ecosystem types Consideration of human interactions with all of the above

Brazilian Rainforest Loss in Two Years