Preface

This book is about interactions – those that occur between the terrestrial biosphere and the atmosphere. Understanding biosphere-atmosphere interactions is a core activity within the discipline of earth system sciences. Many of the most pressing environmental challenges that face society (e.g., the anthropogenic forcing of climate change, urban pollution, the production of sustainable energy sources, and stratospheric ozone depletion), and their remedies, can be traced to biosphere-atmosphere interactions within the earth system. Traditionally, biosphere-atmosphere interactions have been studied within a broad range of conventional disciplines, including biology, the atmospheric and geological sciences, and engineering. In this book we take an integrated, interdisciplinary perspective; one that weaves together concepts and theory from all of the traditional disciplines, and organizes them into a framework that we hope will catalyze a new, synergistic approach to teaching university courses in the earth system sciences.