Abstract

The earth is a highly complex system, formed by a large variety of subsystems, such as the biosphere, atmosphere, hydrosphere, and lithosphere, interacting by the exchange of energy and mass. All of these domains are highly interlinked, with many concurrent processes operating on a wide range of temporal and spatial scales. Many natural processes are self-organizing, giving rise to a high degree of variety and complexity in the system (Rial et al., 2004). At the same time, the earth system and human society are facing global environmental and societal challenges, many of which are not particular to any one of the domains (Figure 17.1). We can only understand, predict, and possibly solve them if we understand the systems where they originate. This is not possible without environmental research and its supporting global-scale data delivery with analyses from observations, experiments, and modeling.