The earth's biosphere : evolution, dynamics, and change /

The earth's biosphere : evolution, dynamics, and change /

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Bibliographic Details
Author / Creator:Smil, Vaclav.
Imprint:Cambridge, Mass. : MIT Press, ©2002.
Description:1 online resource (viii, 346 pages) : illustrations, maps
Language:English
Subject:
Biosphere.
Biosphere.
Electronic books.
Format: E-Resource Book
URL for this record:http://pi.lib.uchicago.edu/1001/cat/bib/11119038
Hidden Bibliographic Details
ISBN:9780262283823
0262283824
0585443831
9780585443836
0262692988
0262194724
Notes:Includes bibliographical references (pages 289-328) and index.
English.
Print version record.
Summary:A comprehensive overview of Earth's biosphere, written with scientific rigor and essay-like flair.In his latest book, Vaclav Smil tells the story of the Earth's biosphere from its origins to its near and long-term future. He explains the workings of its parts and what is known about their interactions. With essay-like flair, he examines the biosphere's physics, chemistry, biology, geology, oceanography, energy, climatology, and ecology, as well as the changes caused by human activity. He provides both the basics of the story and surprising asides illustrating critical but often neglected aspects of biospheric complexity.Smil begins with a history of the modern idea of the biosphere, focusing on the development of the concept by Russian scientist Vladimir Vernadsky. He explores the probability of life elsewhere in the universe, life's evolution and metabolism, and the biosphere's extent, mass, productivity, and grand-scale organization. Smil offers fresh approaches to such well-known phenomena as solar radiation and plate tectonics and introduces lesser-known topics such as the quarter-power scaling of animal and plant metabolism across body sizes and metabolic pathways. He also examines two sets of fundamental relationships that have profoundly influenced the evolution of life and the persistence of the biosphere: symbiosis and the role of life's complexity as a determinant of biomass productivity and resilience. And he voices concern about the future course of human-caused global environmental change, which could compromise the biosphere's integrity and threaten the survival of modern civilization.
Awards:Association of American Publishers PROSE Award, 2002.
Other form:Print version: Smil, Vaclav. Earth's biosphere. Cambridge, Mass. : MIT Press, ©2002 0262194724
Table of Contents:
  • 1. Evolution of the idea : from Vernadsky to a science of the global environment
  • 2. Life in the universe : attributes, constraints, and probabilities
  • 3. Life's diversity and resilience : metabolisms, species, catastrophes
  • 4. Energizing the biosphere : solar radiation and the Earth's heat
  • 5. Water and material flows : biospheric cycles
  • 6. The biosphere's extent : the moveable boundaries
  • 7. The biosphere's mass and productivity : quantifying life's presence and performance
  • 8. The biosphere's dynamics and organization : fundamental rules and grand patterns
  • 9. Civilization and the biosphere : the Earth transformed by human action
  • 10. Epilogue.

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