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Consists of both:

Biotic factors (living things)

and Abiotic factors (nonliving things) that surround us and with which we interact.

Environmental science is defined as the interaction of humans with the environment. The environment includes all conditions that surround living organisms:

Climate Air and water quality Soil and landforms Presence of other living organisms

How does the natural world work?

How does our environment affect us?

How do we affect our environment? Applied goal: Developing solutions to environmental problems.

 is an interdisciplinary field, drawing on many diverse disciplines.

Components of Environment

Biological components
Physical Components

Biotic Factors

A-Biotic Factors

Chemical Components

The three domains. To interpret this diagram, start at the bottom with the common ancestor of all living organisms and move up. The domain Bacteria was the first group to branch off from all other organisms, then the domain Archaea. The domain Eukarya, which is composed of the organisms with which you are most familiar, appeared later in the evolutionary history of life.

Species: A group of similar organisms

whose members freely interbreed with one another in the wild to produce fertile offspring; members of one species generally do not interbreed with other species of organisms.

Population: A group of organisms of the same species that live in the same area at the same time. Community: A natural association that consists of all the populations of different species that live and interact within an area at the same time.

Ecosystem: A community and its physical environment.

PRODUCER CONSUMER DECOMPOSER Together make biological factors of an Ecosystem

The term community has a far broader sense in ecology than in everyday speech. For the biologist, a community is an association of different populations of organisms that live and interact in the same place at the same time.
The organisms in a community are interdependent in a variety of ways. Species compete with one another for food, water, living space, and other resources. Some organisms kill and eat other organisms. Some species form intimate associations with one another

Whereas other species seem only distantly connected.

Fate of solar radiation that reaches Earth. Most of the suns energy never reaches Earth. The solar energy that reaches Earth warms the planets surface, drives the hydrologic cycle and other biogeochemical cycles, produces our climate, and powers almost all life through the process of photosynthesis.

Solar intensity changes with latitude

Progression of seasons.
Earths inclination on its axis remains the same as it travels around the sun. The suns rays hit the Northern Hemisphere obl iquely during its winter months and more directly during its summer. In the Southern Hemisphere, the suns rays are oblique during i ts winter, which corresponds to the Northern Hemispheres summer. At the equator, the suns rays are approximately vertical on March 21 and September 22.

The Atmosphere

Weather and Climate

Weather refers to the conditions in the atmosphere at a given place and time; it includes temperature, atmospheric pressure, precipitation, cloudiness, humidity, and wind. Weather changes from one hour to the next and from one day to the next.
Climate refers to the average weather conditions that occur in a place over a period of years.

The two most important factors that determine an areas climate are Temperature and precipitation

Other climate factors include wind, humidity, fog, and cloud cover. Depending on their layers, altitude, and density, clouds can absorb or reflect sunlight and can retain the planets outgoing heat

Day-to-day variations, day-to-night variations, and seasonal variations in climate factors are important dimensions of climate that affect organisms. Latitude, elevation, topography, vegetation, distance from the ocean, and location on a continent or other landmass influence temperature, precipitation, and other aspects of climate. Unlike weather, which changes rapidly, climate usually changes slowly, over hundreds or thousands of years.

PRECIPITATION

Differences in precipitation depend on several factors. The heavy rainfall of some areas of the tropics results mainly from the equatorial uplift of moisture-laden air. High surface-water temperatures cause the evaporation of vast quantities of water from tropical parts of the ocean, and prevailing winds blow the resulting moist air over landmasses. Heating of the air over a land surface that was warmed by the sun causes moist air to rise. As it rises, the air cools, and its moisture-holding ability decreases (cool air holds less water vapor than warm air). When the air reaches its saturation pointwhen it cannot hold any additional water vaporclouds form and water is released as precipitation.

Rain shadow. Prevailing winds blow warm, moist air from the windward side. Air cools as it rises, releasing precipitation so that dry air descends on the leeward side.

TORNADOES
A tornado is a powerful, rotating funnel of air associated with severe thunderstorms. Tornadoes form when a mass of cool, dry air collides with warm, humid air, producing a strong updraft of spinning air on the underside of a cloud. The spinning funnel becomes a tornado when it descends from the cloud and touches the ground. Wind velocity in a strong tornado may reach 480 km per hour (300 mi per hour). Tornadoes range from 1 m to 3.2 km (2 mi) in width. They last from several seconds to as long as 7 hours and travel along the ground from several meters to more than 320 km (200 mi).

On a local level, tornadoes have more concentrated energy than any other kind of storm. They can destroy buildings, bridges, and freight trains and even blow the water out of a river or small lake, leaving it empty.

TROPICAL CYCLONES
Tropical cyclones are giant, rotating tropical storms with winds of at least 119 km per hour (74 mi per hour); the most powerful have wind velocities greater than 250 km per hour (155 mi per hour). They form as strong winds pick up moisture over warm surface waters of the tropical ocean and start to spin as a result of Earths rotation. The spinning causes an upward spiral of massive clouds as air is pulled upward. Known as hurricanes in the Atlantic, typhoons in the Pacific, and cyclones in the Indian Ocean, tropical cyclones are most common during summer and autumn months when ocean temperatures are warmest.

Internal Planetary Processes

Plate tectonics

Earths outermost rigid rock layer (the lithosphere) is composed of seven large plates, plus a few smaller ones, that float on the asthenosphere (the region of the mantle where rocks become hot and soft). The landmasses are situated on some of these plates. As the plates move horizontally across Earths surface, the continents change their relative positions.

Plates and plate boundary locations. Seven major independent plates move horizontally across Earths surface: African, Eurasian, Indian-Australian, Antarctic, Pacific, North American, and South American. Arrows show the directions of plate movements.

EARTHQUAKES

Earthquakes occur when plates along a fault suddenly move in opposite directions relative to one another. This movement triggers seismic waves that radiate through the crust.

EARTH SYSTEMS AND ENVIRONMENTAL SCIENCE

A system consist of many interacting parts function as a whole.

ESS= Earth system Science

A Science that deals with the interaction/interrelationship of various earth spheres.

Atmosphere

EVENT
Biosphere

SPHERE SPHERE

Earth

Hydrosphere

SPHERE

Lithosphere

A natural system consisting of a community of organisms and its physical environment is known as an ecosystem. In ecosystems, biological processes (such as photosynthesis) interact with physical and chemical processes to modify the composition of gases in the atmosphere, transfer energy from the sun through living organisms, recycle waste products, and respond to environmental changes with resilience. Natural ecosystems are the foundation for our concept of environmental sustainability.

Ecosystems are organized into larger and larger systems that interact with one another. At a global level are Earth systems, which include Earths climate, atmosphere, land, coastal zones, and the ocean. Environmental scientists use a systems approach to try to understand how human activities are altering global environmental parameters such as temperature, CO2 concentration in the atmosphere, land cover, changes in nitrogen levels in coastal waters, and declining fisheries in the ocean.

Environment consists of biotic and abiotic components

Environmental Science deals with human interactions with environment Environmental Science is inter disciplinary
Biotic environment is based on hierarchal organization of living things The communities interact with each other and to physical environment to create ecosystem The radiant energy is sole source of energy in ecosystem and the energy transfers through food chain The physical environment comprises solar radiations, the atmosphere, lithosphere, hydrosphere and anthrosphere. The atmosphere has temperature defined four layers, troposphere, stratosphere, mesosphere and thermosphere

 weather, climate and precipitation are some other abiotic factors of environment

Volcanic eruptions, tornados, earthquakes and typhoons are some natural disasters that are created by earths rotation
Earth is a big system in which all the components interact with each other ESS or earth system science deals with interaction accruing in earth systems Naturally earth system works on the basis of feedback mechanism Feedback is either negative or positive At a small scale an ecosystem shows complete features of a natural system