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- Ecosystems: modelling the Earth
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How can numerical models help us to understand our planet? How do we make sure they represent reality? This album introduces ongoing work to model the entire planet's ecosystems, simulating the complex physical, chemical and biological interactions taking place between every living organism and climatic activity. Since everything is interconnected, Earth systems modelling can help our understanding of how the Earth's processes affect each other. For example, by increasing the rate of decay of leaf litter in North American forests, scientists can investigate the effect on global temperatures. The acid test is to see how well the model reflects reality, by comparing the model's predictions against real-world data. This material forms part of The Open University course S396 Ecosystems.
By: The OpenLearn team (The Open University,)
- Duration 15 mins
- Updated Wednesday 20th January 2010
- Posted under Across the Sciences
Track 1: Ecosystems: modelling the Earth
A short introduction to this album.
© The Open University 2010
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Tracks in this podcast:
Track | Title | Description |
---|---|---|
1 | Ecosystems: modelling the Earth | A short introduction to this album. Play now Ecosystems: modelling the Earth |
2 | Using a model | How models can be used to predict the Earth's climate patterns. Play now Using a model |
3 | The acid test | The limitations of models; how to measure model error. Play now The acid test |
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Originally published: Wednesday, 20th January 2010
Copyright information
- Body text - Content : Copyright The Open University
- Audio/Video tracks: Creative Commons BY-NC-SA 4.0 The Open University 2010
- Image 'Ecosystems: modelling the Earth' - Copyright: The Open University 2010
- Image 'Models and modelling' - Copyright: Used with permission
- Image 'Modelling pollution in the Great Lakes' - Copyright: Used with permission
- Image 'Modelling object-oriented software – an introduction' - Copyright: Used with permission
- Image 'Penguins on ice' - Copyright: BBC
- Image 'black and white question marks' - Copyright: © sylverarts/123rf
- Image 'Hexokinase ball and stick model, with substrates to scale copy' - Copyright free: By The original uploader was TimVickers at English Wikipedia [Public domain], via Wikimedia Commons
- Image 'Red LBC logo' - Copyright: RedLBC
- Image 'Bang Goes The Theory - Inside the abandoned RAF building' - Copyright: BBC
- Image 'Flock of red knot birds' - Copyright free: Public domain image
- Image 'beach brain image' - The Open University under Creative Commons BY-NC-SA 4.0 license
- Image '60-Second Adventures in Astronomy' - Copyright: The Open University
- Image 'Full moon set against dark sky during the night' - NASA/Goddard Space Flight Center Scientific Visualization Studio under Creative-Commons license
- Image 'The sea of Galilee' - Gordon Giles under CC-BY-ND-2.5 licence under Creative-Commons license
- Image 'A detail from the set' - Copyright: Production team
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Originally published: Wednesday, 20th January 2010
Copyright information
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- Audio/Video tracks: Creative Commons BY-NC-SA 4.0 The Open University 2010
- Image 'Ecosystems: modelling the Earth' - Copyright: The Open University 2010
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- Image 'Modelling object-oriented software – an introduction' - Copyright: Used with permission
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- Image 'black and white question marks' - Copyright: © sylverarts/123rf
- Image 'Hexokinase ball and stick model, with substrates to scale copy' - Copyright free: By The original uploader was TimVickers at English Wikipedia [Public domain], via Wikimedia Commons
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- Image 'Bang Goes The Theory - Inside the abandoned RAF building' - Copyright: BBC
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- Image 'beach brain image' - The Open University under Creative Commons BY-NC-SA 4.0 license
- Image '60-Second Adventures in Astronomy' - Copyright: The Open University
- Image 'Full moon set against dark sky during the night' - NASA/Goddard Space Flight Center Scientific Visualization Studio under Creative-Commons license
- Image 'The sea of Galilee' - Gordon Giles under CC-BY-ND-2.5 licence under Creative-Commons license
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