5 THE COMPOSITION OF THE EARTH AND ITS ATMOSPHERE AND THE PROCESSES OCCURRING WITHIN THEM SHAPE THE EARTH’S SURFACE AND ITS CLIMATE
- Theory
- TASKS
- WORKSHEETS FOR PUPILS
Earth climate system
The climate is characterized by a certain time and space stability. Its stability is determined by the environment in which it was formed. We refer to this environment as a climate system (Pretel, 2012). The climate system is an interactive system consisting of 5 main components: atmosphere, hydrosphere (water on Earth), cryosphere (ice and snow on Earth), lithosphere (upper layers of the earth‘s crust), biosphere (living organisms) and noosphere (human activity) which interact with each other (Lapin, 2004). At the same time, they are influenced by many external mechanisms. One of the most important influences is the Sun.
Pic 40: Scheme of the basic part of Earth‘s climate system
(Scheme of the basic part of Earth‘s climate system. Source: https://www.gfdl.noaa.gov/earth-system-model/)