As this thought experiment illustrates, the best way to think about CO2 by the gigatonne is that it is a volume of greenhouse gas that is significant in terms of planetary function.
Given the essential roles that oceans play in planetary function and provision of human sustenance, the grand challenge is to intervene before more tipping points are passed and marine ecosystems follow less-buffered terrestrial systems further down a spiral of decline.
In both cases as is not unusual human intervention is at odds with the evolutionary history of the plant and, as such, is apt to lead to problems in long-term ecosystem, including planetary, function.
What is their planetary purpose and contribution?
This article describes the use of Maple to obtain an expansion of the planetary disturbing function (the mutual gravitational potential of two bodies orbiting a third, much more massive, body) as a Poisson series to eighth order in the small parameters which characterise the system.
Traditionally, planetary rovers use wheels for locomotion.
One scientific objective of the Plasma Wave Investigation consortium, PWI, is to determine the influence of the thermal plasma upon the formation and dynamics of the planetary magnetosphere, as a function of solar activity.
When combined with previous phase curve observations at 8.0 and 24μm, these data allow us to characterize the exoplanet's emission spectrum as a function of planetary longitude and to search for local variations in its vertical thermal profile and atmospheric composition.
The regolith evolution on planetary objects is a function of the continuous flux of impactors of various sizes, volcanism, as well as the constant bombardment by solar and galactic energetic particles.
One theory, published in 1999 and re-examined in October 2005 (with the help of the Mars Global Surveyor), is that these bands demonstrate plate tectonics on Mars four billion years ago, before the planetary dynamo ceased to function and the planet's magnetic field faded away.
