What is the hydrosphere and why is it important?

Image Credit: NASA

Background information on ocean circulation.

We often take the Biosphere, especially its plants and trees, for granted; however, this important sphere also supports almost every aspect of our lives.

Our Earth is a dynamic system with diverse subsystems that interact in complex ways. Questions that scientists have about the Earth as a System may include the following. As you learn more about the Earth System, reflect on these questions. 

MND recognizes that teaching science is about helping students make sense of the world around them, not memorizing facts and principles. MND makes teaching Earth Science easier (and more interesting) by organizing NASA data with the phenomena that they support.

A system is an organized group of related components that work together to carry out functions that the individual parts cannot do alone.  The Earth System, like the human body system, are similar in that they comprise diverse parts that interact in complex ways.

Review this page to learn about the background of volcanoes and their eruptions.

Background information on the El Nino Southern Oscillation or ENSO.

The Cryosphere refers to any place on Earth where water is in its solid form, where low temperatures freeze water and turn it into ice. The frozen water can be in the form of solid ice or snow and occurs in many places around the Earth. People often think of the polar regions of our planet as the main home of the Cyrosphere; the North Pole in the Arctic, as well as the South Pole in the Antarctic. The cryosphere exists in the polar regions, but is also found wherever snow, sea ice, glaciers, permafrost, ice sheets, and icebergs exists. In these places, surface temperatures remain below freezing for a portion of each year.