LEARNING OBJECTIVES 

     The Earth's atmosphere is a dynamic system that is changing continuously while undergoing complex physical and chemical processes.  This section should foster your understanding of the material in the text regarding historical global climate change patterns, and how earth system science is critical to understanding the impact of human activity on the Earth's atmosphere, including the potential effects of and adjustments to global warming.  

A CLOSER LOOK  - Earth System Science and Global Change.  

     Until very recently it was generally thought that human activity was only capable of causing local, or at most regional, environmental changes.  We now know differently!  The main goal of the emerging science known as Earth System Science is to obtain a fundamental understanding of how our planet works as a system.    

     The research priorities of Earth system science include the following: establishment of worldwide measurement stations to better understand physical, hydrologic, chemical, and biological processes that are significant in the evolution of Earth on a variety of time scales;  documentation of global changes that occur over several decades; development of quantitative models useful in the prediction of future global change, and; gathering essential information that decision makers need at the national, international and global levels.  The major tools for studying global change are evaluation of the geologic record, monitoring, and mathematical models.  
 
 

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