Our Changing Planet An Introduction to Earth System Science and Global Environmental Change

This book offers a general discussion of global environmental change geared toward readers like you. It presents both Earth science and ecological concepts related to global change, as well as a discussion of the human dimensions of change. The text's unifying theme is consideration of aspects of both natural and human-induced global environmental change.

1.    Introduction: The Changing Planetary System
2.    Earth’s Lithosphere: Geologic Time and Building Blocks
3.    Earth’s Lithosphere: Plate Tectonics
4.    The Fluid Earth: Atmosphere
5.    The Fluid Earth: Hydrosphere and Air-Sea Interactions
6.    Our Living Planet: Earth’s Ecosphere
7.    Biogeochemical Cycles of Carbon, Nutrients, and Oxygen
8.    Historical Framework of Global Environmental Change
9.    Human Forcings on the Ecosphere: World Population, Development and Resource Consumption
10.    The Changing Earth Surface: Terrestrial Vegetation
11.    The Changing Earth Surface: Land and Water
12.    The Changing Atmosphere: Acid Deposition and Photochemical Smog
13.    The Changing Atmosphere: Pleistocene and Holocene Environmental Change
14.    The Changing Atmosphere: Global Warming and Stratospheric Ozone Depletion
15.    Human Dimensions of Global Environmental Change