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Earth's climate system is a complex system with five interacting components: the atmosphere (air), the hydrosphere (water), the cryosphere (ice and permafrost), the lithosphere (earth's upper rocky layer) and the biosphere (living things). [28]: 1451 Climate is the statistical characterization of the climate system.
Many processes in the Earth's surface, essential for the conditions of life, depend on the interaction of living forms, especially microorganisms, with inorganic elements. These processes establish a global control system that regulates Earth's surface temperature , atmosphere composition and ocean salinity , powered by the global thermodynamic ...
Biogeochemistry is the scientific discipline that involves the study of the chemical, physical, geological, and biological processes and reactions that govern the composition of the natural environment (including the biosphere, the cryosphere, the hydrosphere, the pedosphere, the atmosphere, and the lithosphere).
In a review of the factors which are important for the evolution of habitable Earth-sized planets, Lammer et al. proposed a classification of four water-dependent habitat types: [19] [101] Class I habitats are planetary bodies on which stellar and geophysical conditions allow liquid water to be available at the surface, along with sunlight, so ...
Other external factors that play an important role in ecosystem functioning include time and potential biota, the organisms that are present in a region and could potentially occupy a particular site. Ecosystems in similar environments that are located in different parts of the world can end up doing things very differently simply because they ...
Solidified lava flow in Hawaii Sedimentary layers in Badlands National Park, South Dakota Metamorphic rock, Nunavut, Canada. Geology (from Ancient Greek γῆ (gê) 'earth' and λoγία () 'study of, discourse') [1] [2] is a branch of natural science concerned with the Earth and other astronomical objects, the rocks of which they are composed, and the processes by which they change over time. [3]
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A diverse variety of living organisms (life forms) can be found in the biosphere on Earth, and properties common to these organisms—plants, animals, fungi, protists, archaea, and bacteria—are a carbon- and water-based cellular form with complex organization and heritable genetic information.