If Gaia is a poetic personification of planet Earth, Earth Systems Science is her cyborg counterpart. James Lovelock and Lynn Margulis postulated that negative and positive feedback loops in the Earth system produce an overall property of self-regulation, but when Lovelock first had his grand idea of Gaia, he had no idea what the feedback mechanisms that could regulate the climate and the composition of the atmosphere were — and neither did anyone else. (Tim Lenton, Earth Systems Science — a Brief Introduction xi).
For many earth scientists, the planet Earth is really comprised of two systems — the surface system that supports life, and the great bulk of the inner Earth underneath. Keeping with the spheroid shape of the earth, the different layers or categories include the lithospere and hydrosphere, biosphere, atmosphere —that includes the troposphere, stratosphere, mesosphere, thermosphere, the magnetosphere as well as the cryosphere and technosphere. (and maybe the Noösphere) or even the many griftospheres!
Earth Systems Science (ESS) studies the biogeochemical fluxes and cycles belonging to these different spheres, including the water cycle, the nitrogen cycle, the carbon cycle. (see ecology) These complex systems are understood as subject to changes of state and tipping points, amplifying feedback within a system that’s getting strong enough that it can cause a self-propelling change.”
Climate tipping points (CTPs) are a source of growing scientific, policy, and public concern. They occur when change in large parts of the climate system—known as tipping elements—become self-perpetuating beyond a warming threshold. Once the key threshold is crossed, the change accelerates, and a profound transformation becomes inevitable. (Tim Lenton) Change begets more change in a self-reinforcing loop.(See Lenton, Timothy M. et al.Tipping elements in the Earth's climate system)
(see complexity)
The concept of “Planetary Boundaries”is indicative of the emergence of a new kind of
‘geologic politics’ that is as concerned with the temporal dynamics and changes of
state in Earth systems as it is with more conventional political issues revolving around
territories and nation state boundaries: