Natural Sciences

Earth’s 5 Spheres

1. 1. Atmosphere

   2. Biosphere – living sphere

   3. Pedosphere – soil

   4. Lithosphere – rocks & minerals

   5. Hydrosphere & Lithosphere – Water or ice

Earth Atmosphere:

• • 78% Nitrogen (N2), 20% Oxygen (O2), .033% Carbon Dioxide (CO2)

  • Ozonization (O3) 0.02-0.07 parts/million

  • Standard Atmosphere: 760 mm column at 0 degree C or 10 meters of water

  • Standard gravity: 32.174 ft/sec, Speed of sound in air - 741 mi/hr

Gases

• • Hydrogen - Sun - abundant

  • Carbon - People, Animals - abundant

  • Oxygen - Trees - abundant

  • Water - H2O - 3.66 trillion gallons

  • Ozone - O3 - atmosphere

  • Nitrogen - atmosphere

Climatic Regions

• • Tropical humid

  • Dry: Desert, Steppe

  • Mild: Mediterranean, Subtropical

  • Humid, subarctic

  • Polar: Tundra, Ice Cap

  • Highland

Soil Enrichment, Vegetation

Desert - Mohave Desert

• • Vegetation: baobola trees, bushes, shrubs, cacti, small flowers, deep taproots to rainfall and ground water

Steppe Desert

• • Sand and Grasses, Irrigating sand with grasses

Mediterranean

• • Sand and Grasses

  • Composting organic material to fertilizer

  • Trees

Grassland

• • Vegetation: grass species, tall grasses, short grasses, sparse bushes, occasional woodleands

Tropical Scrub

• • Earth warms into soil

Coniferous forest

• • Coniferous trees, spruce, fir, pine, hemlock, birch, maple

Tropical rain forest

• • Vegetation: towering trees, epiphytes, plants attached to trees, and lianas, woody vines that climb to the treetops, dense canopy, little understory

Temperate forest

• • Broad leafed deciduous (leaf shedding) trees, pine, hemlocks, shrubby undergrowth, ferns, lichens, and mosses

Swamps, Marshes, Bogs

• • Marches usually heavily vegetated with cattails, sedges, and reeds, water tolerant trees such as red maple and cedars, sphagnum moss and low shrubs like leather leaf

Lakes and rivers

• • Microscopic algae in water (phyto-plankton) or on rocks and sediment (periphyton), plants rooted on bottom and submerged or emergent pacro-phytes

Estuaries

• • Phyto-plankton in water column, root aquatics, eel-grass, kelps, salt-marsh grasses, tropics, mangrove swamps form, salt-tolerant species of trees and shrubs

Inter tidal

• • Microsopic algae on beaches, red and brown algae such as kelp, irish moss and rockweed

Ocean

• • Coastal: microsopic phytoplankton algae dominate productivity, some large benthic plants where water clarity permits.  In coral reefs, symbiotic algae living in coral animal, other large algae and turtle grass predominate

  • Open Ocean: exclusively phytoplankton, coccolithophroids, diatoms, dinoflagellates predominate.  Varies according to nutrient availabilty

  • Oxygen production is 50% trees and the other part is microorganisms like cyano-bacteria and phyto-plankton. Initially iron diluted in seawater oxides in the seabed, oxygen was later formed during photosynthesis released into the atmosphere around 350 million years ago reaching around 21 percent the highest level of oxygen was 35% 300 million years ago. 

Tundra

• • Desert left - warm dry air from mountain

  • Mountain in the center - Snow at Elevation 14,000 

  • Ocean on the right - cooling moist air to trees in mountain

  • Plowing rocky soil to sand

  • Minerals

Mountains and Rainforest

• • Smoky Mountains - North America

  • Amazon Rainforest – South America

  • Sumatra Rainforest, Indonesia - Asia

  • Congo Basin Rainforest – Africa

  • Humans and trees have a natural symbiotic relationship of carbon and oxygen 

  • Tropical rainforest receive 394 inches of rainfall each year

  • A tree in the rainforest can release 200 gallons of water into the atmosphere daily

Meteorology / Climate Change

• • Annual precipitation: 119,00 km3/year

  • Atmospheric Water .001% - 12,900