Category: Global Systems Science

Staying current for Chapter 5 See non-chronological resources (bottom of this page) { Energy Flow Contents } 2025-08-01. A Solar Wind Squeeze May Have Strengthened Jovian Aurorae. By Sarah Stanley, Eos/AGU. Excerpt: Spectacular aurorae dance and shimmer nearly continuously at Jupiter’s poles. …Sometimes, Jupiter’s aurorae grow much brighter for hours or days at a time. …clarifying […]

Staying current for Chapter 3 { Energy Flow Contents } California Earthquake animation site at USGS 2025-08-04. Earth’s Core Appears To Be Leaking Up and Out of Earth’s Surface. By Robin George Andrews, Quantamagazine. Excerpt: All the activity on Earth’s surface — erupting volcanoes, shifting tectonic plates, restless seas and myriad forms of life — depends […]

Staying current for Chapter 2 See articles from: {2008–2020}-{2002–2007}. See non-chronological resources (bottom of this page) { Energy Flow Contents } 2025-08-19. Hayward earthquake of 1868: What lessons can we learn? By Richard Schwartz, The Berkeley Scanner. Excerpt: …as a community, we have largely chosen to ignore what happened Oct. 21, 1868…. …The 45-second 1868 […]

{ Energy Flow Contents } { All GSS Books } 2007 November 1. Is the ocean carbon sink sinking? RealClimate website. –David. Excerpt: The past few weeks and years have seen a bushel of papers finding that the natural world, in particular perhaps the ocean, is getting fed up with absorbing our CO2… evidence that the hypothesized carbon cycle […]

Staying current for Chapter 1 { Energy Flow Contents } 2001 November. Birth of a Large Iceberg in Pine Island Bay, Antarctica [223kb PDF NASA Lithograph] This lithograph shows the break-off of a large tabular iceberg from the Pine Island Glacier in West Antarctica. This event occurred between November 4th and 12th, 2001, and provides powerful evidence […]

Chapter 9 { Energy Flow Contents } It’s a sunny spring day. Lush green grass from winter rainstorms carpets the hillside, punctuated here and there with ancient oak trees. Zooming in on one of the trees we see that it’s alive with hundreds of oak caterpillars, munching holes in the leaves. It’s a feast day […]

Chapter 8 { Energy Flow Contents } In the Peruvian hamlet of Chato Chico, after weeks of rain, Isaias Ipanaqué Silva watched the Piura River rising more than he had ever seen. Every several years, for as long as anyone in the village could remember, heavier than normal rainfall had come.  But never like this—five […]

Chapter 7 { Energy Flow Contents } “Dad was outside and Mom and I were getting dinner ready,” said Karen Knobloch, who lived with her parents on a farm in northwest Iowa.  “Dad came inside and said we’d better get to the basement. It hit when we were halfway down the steps.” Windows were blown […]

{ Energy Flow Contents } { All GSS Books } Your job as a member of Heat Trappers, Inc., is to work with a team of engineers (your fellow students) to create as warm an environment as possible for some miniature exotic tropical plants that have just been acquired for your school’s new botanical garden.  […]

Chapter 6 { Energy Flow Contents } Most natural systems are continuously changing. Yet within them certain things remain the same, or fluctuate within limits. Any balance between opposing forces or influences can be called “equilibrium.” There are two kinds of equilibrium: static and dynamic. Systems in Static Equilibrium Static equilibrium is when parts of […]