Portal:Earth sciences
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The Earth Sciences (also known as geoscience, the geosciences or Earth Science) are the category of physical sciences that study the planet Earth. It is a special type of planetary science; it studies the planet we live on: the structure and composition of the Earth, its origins, physical features, changing aspects, and all of its natural phenomena. The major disciplines of The Earth Sciences use physics, mathematics and, chemistry to build a quantitative understanding of the principal areas or spheres of the Earth system. Like in many sciences, The Earth can be studied both experimentally and theoretically. Also, there are both reductionist and holistic approaches to Earth Science. Applications of the Earth Sciences include the exploration and exploitation of mineral and hydrocarbon resources, cartography, weather forecasting patterns, and warning of volcanic eruptions. The Earth Sciences are related to the environmental sciences as well as the other subfields of planetary astronomy.
Notable fields of the Earth Sciences are:
- Geology, the study of the Earth's lithosphere, mantle and core.
- Soil science, the study of the Earth's pedosphere.
- Oceanography, limnology and hydrology: studies of the Earth's hydrosphere.
- Atmospheric sciences.
- Glaciology, the study of the Earth's cryosphere.
Some notable interdisciplinary fields relating to geoscience are meteorology, geochemistry, geophysics, physical geography, mineralogy, climatology, and paleoclimatology.
The retreat of glaciers since 1850, worldwide and rapid, affects the availability of fresh water for irrigation and domestic use, mountain recreation, animals and plants that depend on glacier-melt, and in the longer term, the level of the oceans. Studied by glaciologists, the temporal coincidence of glacier retreat with the measured increase of atmospheric greenhouse gases is often cited as an evidentiary underpinning of anthropogenic global warming. Mid-latitude mountain ranges such as the Himalayas, Alps, Rocky Mountains, Cascade Range, and the southern Andes, as well as isolated tropical summits such as Mount Kilimanjaro in Africa, are showing some of the largest proportionate glacial loss.(IPoCC)(Mölg)
The Little Ice Age was a period from about 1550 to 1850 when the world experienced relatively cool temperatures compared to the present. Subsequently, until about 1940 glaciers around the world retreated as the climate warmed. Glacial retreat slowed and even reversed, in many cases, between 1950 and 1980 as a slight global cooling occurred. However, since 1980 a significant global warming has led to glacier retreat becoming increasingly rapid and ubiquitous, so much so that many glaciers have disappeared and the existence of a great number of the remaining glaciers of the world is threatened. In locations such as the Andes of South America and Himalayas in Asia, the demise of glaciers in these regions will have potential impact on water supplies. The retreat of mountain glaciers, notably in western North America, Asia, the Alps, Indonesia and Africa, and tropical and subtropical regions of South America, has been used to provide qualitative evidence for the rise in global temperatures since the late 19th century.(IPoCC2) (NSIDC) The recent substantial retreat and an acceleration of the rate of retreat since 1995 of a number of key outlet glaciers of the Greenland and West Antarctic ice sheets, may foreshadow a rise in sea level, having a potentially dramatic effect on coastal regions worldwide. (Read more...)
This is a list of volcanoes in Indonesia. The geography of Indonesia is dominated by volcanoes that are formed due to subduction zones between the Eurasian plate and the Indo-Australian plate. Some of the volcanoes are notable for their eruptions, for instance, Krakatau for its global effects in 1883,[1] Lake Toba for its supervolcanic eruption estimated to have occurred 74,000 Before Present which was responsible for six years of volcanic winter,[2] and Mount Tambora for the most violent eruption in recorded history in 1815.[3]
Volcanoes in Indonesia are a part of the Pacific Ring of Fire. The 150 entries in the list below are grouped into six geographical regions, four of which belong to the volcanoes of the Sunda Arc trench system. The remaining two groups are volcanoes of Halmahera, including its surrounding volcanic islands, and volcanoes of Sulawesi and the Sangihe Islands. The latter group is in one volcanic arc together with the Philippines volcanoes.
The most active volcanoes are Kelut and Merapi on Java island which have been responsible for thousands of deaths in the region. Since AD 1000, Kelut has erupted more than 30 times, of which the largest eruption was at scale 5 on the Volcanic Explosivity Index (VEI),[4] while Merapi has erupted more than 80 times.[5] The International Association of Volcanology and Chemistry of the Earth's Interior has named Merapi as a Decade Volcano since 1995 because of its high volcanic activity. (Read more...)
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Sub-categories of Earth Sciences:
Climate change - Climatology - Earth - Earth observation satellites - Earth scientists - Ecology - Environmental science - Geodesy - Geography - Geology - Glaciology - Hydrology - Limnology - Meteorology - Oceanography - Paleoclimatology - Palynology - Space science
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