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Universal natural resources and physical phenomena that lack clear-cut boundaries, such as air, water and climate, as well as energy, radiation, electric charge and magnetism, not originating from civilized human actions. In contrast to the natural environment is the built environment.
Some climate change effects: wildfire caused by heat and dryness, bleached coral caused by ocean acidification and heating, environmental migration caused by desertification, and coastal flooding caused by storms and sea level rise. Effects of climate change are well documented and growing for Earth's natural environment and human societies. Changes to the climate system include an overall ...
Earth's surface is the boundary between the atmosphere, and the solid Earth and oceans. Defined in this way, it has an area of about 510 million km 2 (197 million sq mi). [12] Earth can be divided into two hemispheres: by latitude into the polar Northern and Southern hemispheres; or by longitude into the continental Eastern and Western hemispheres.
Nature is an inherent character or constitution, [ 1 ] particularly of the ecosphere or the universe as a whole. In this general sense nature refers to the laws, elements and phenomena of the physical world, including life. Although humans are part of nature, human activity or humans as a whole are often described as at times at odds, or ...
A landform is a natural or anthropogenic [1][2] land feature on the solid surface of the Earth or other planetary body. Landforms together make up a given terrain, and their arrangement in the landscape is known as topography. Landforms include hills, mountains, canyons, and valleys, as well as shoreline features such as bays, peninsulas, and ...
A natural arch.. Physical geography can be divided into several branches or related fields, as follows: Geomorphology [7] [8] is concerned with understanding the surface of the Earth and the processes by which it is shaped, both at the present as well as in the past.
Matters are complicated by the fact that the words nature and natural have more than one meaning. On the one hand there is the main dictionary meaning for nature: "The phenomena of the physical world collectively, including plants, animals, the landscape, and other features and products of the earth, as opposed to humans or human creations."
Geomorphology (from Ancient Greek: γῆ, gê, 'earth'; μορφή, morphḗ, 'form'; and λόγος, lógos, 'study') [2] is the scientific study of the origin and evolution of topographic and bathymetric features generated by physical, chemical or biological processes operating at or near Earth's surface. Geomorphologists seek to understand ...