Complex Earth Systems
Lynn S. Fichter and Eric PyleGeology and Environmental Science: James Madison
University
It’s the SYSTEM
It’s the SYSTEM
Plus, what does it mean for something to “naturally occur” (more ambiguity).
Yet, we might ask, “Interacting how?” “Interrelated how?” “Interdependent how?”
Are the relationships a lucky accident?
How they became Interacting, Interrelated, and Interdependent is what we are trying to determine. We cannot assume what it is our purpose to discover.
Or Teleological? Or random? Or evolutionary?
And “complex whole?” Is it complex just because it has a bunch of parts, like a car?
Or is it complex in
the way people are complex?
And is behavior important? What about a bunch of parts that have simple behavior, like a car, or a watch? Or, simple parts that have complex behavior, like the logistic systems behavior below right?
A system with complexity (like a car) is not a complex system (like Earth systems)
Systems (in the technical sense of Complex Systems Theory) is not new and has many
parents.
Cybernetics
Artificial Intelligen
ce
Self Organizati
on
Cellular automata
Genetic algorithms
Artificial Life
Self-organized criticality
Computational
modeling
Network theory
Chaos and fractal
geometry
ChaosTheory
Studies why and how the behavior of simple systems—becomes more complex and
unpredictable as the energy/information the system dissipates increases.
Xnext = rX (1-X)
System evolves to equilibrium System evolves to complexity
+ -
A classical equilibrium
system
A non-equilibrium complex system
We are educated to think about systems in a classical way; they spontaneously evolved to
equilibrium.Earth Systems do not behave this way.
But this way.
Complex SystemsTheory
ChaosTheory
Is imbedded within . . .
ChaosTheory
Vehicle “agents” interacting in high traffic at high energy/information flow.
Friction“agents” interacting along a fault
zone
Sand grain ”agents”
interacting to form ripples
and cross beds.
All these systems derive their order from the acting out of simple rules among the
agentsLocal Rules leads to Global BehaviorThe Rules can be the laws of
chemistry and physics, or biological rules, or network rules, or mathematic
rules.
Self Organizing Complex Systems are Ubiquitous
© 2012 Lynn S. Fichter
All these are systems in the same way.
(properties common to all systems, whether they be chemical, biological, economic, social, geoscience, etc.)
Chengjiang networkWhat makes a system a Complex systems is they exhibit the same universality
properties
. . . a group of agents . . .
. . . existing far from equilibrium . . .
. . . interacting through rules of +\- feedbacks . . . . . . forming evolutionary networks . . .
. . . that self organize to critical states (SOC) . . .. . . where they become sensitive dependent . . .. . . and undergo avalanche (extinction) behavior. . . . . . that follows a power law. . .
In addition:. . . they behave as strange attractors . . .
. . . with oscillating (hysteresis) behavior . . .
. . . and fractal organization (patterns within patterns within patterns).
Bard E. Abrupt climate changes over millennial time scales: climate shock. Physics Today 55, 32-37 (2002)
(link)
There are many ways of looking at the Earth as a system; they each
have their uses.But if we are not looking at them as Complex Systems in the technical sense we are missing some of the
most interesting and important properties.
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