Anthroposphere: “Human societies, cultures, knowledge, economies and built environments” (Raupach and Canadell, 2010, p. 210).
Atmosphere: A layer of gases surrounding Earth and retained by the planet’s gravity.
Biosphere: The sum total of all living things on Earth. It was originally defined by Suess as the place on Earth’s surface where life dwells. However, in the context of biogeochemical cycling (according to Vernadsky, 1945), it is more appropriate to identify it as an evolving life system that operates as a geological force transforming the planet’s surface and maintaining the global biogeochemical cycles.
Cryosphere: The portions of the Earth system where water is in a solid form, including snow, ice, glaciers, sea ice, and permafrost.
Cybersphere: All information and contacts available over the Internet.
Ecosphere: Encompassing both the biological and physical components of the planet, the ecosphere initially was the purely physical geosphere, atmosphere, and hydrosphere. Over the last four billion years it has come to include the biosphere and the technosphere (Gillard, 1969).
Gaia: The living Earth system, including geosphere, atmosphere, hydrosphere, and biosphere.
Geosphere: Broadly defined as the solid part of Earth. More formally it can be differentiated into the lithosphere (surface, crust, and mantle) and the core.
Hydrosphere: The water on Earth in all forms: the ocean (which is the bulk of the hydrosphere); other surface waters, including inland seas, lakes, and rivers; rain; underground water; ice (as in glaciers and snow); and atmospheric water vapor (as in clouds).
Ionosphere: The uppermost part of the atmosphere, it can be distinguished from lower layers because atoms and molecules are ionized by solar radiation.
Lithosphere: The outermost layer of rock on the planet. The lithosphere is divided into tectonic plates that move independently of each other.
Magnetosphere: The region around Earth in which phenomena are dominated or organized by its magnetic field.
Noösphere: The Earth system under the influence of a conscious (self-aware) humanity. There are alternative interpretations of the concept from Teilhard de Chardin and Vernadsky (D. P. Turner, 2005).
Pedosphere: The layer of soil on Earth’s surface.
Physiosphere: All material components of the Earth system.
Semiosphere: The sphere of signs and symbols. The concept is developed in a collection of Lotman’s writings, published in English under the title Universe of the Mind: A Semiotic Theory of Culture (Lotman, 1990).
Sociosphere: All human beings on the planet and all their interrelationships.
Stratosphere: The second layer of Earth’s atmosphere, just above the troposphere and below the mesosphere. Important in relation to the biosphere because ozone in the stratosphere absorbs most of the damaging ultraviolet radiation in unfiltered sunlight.
Technobiosphere: The result of integration of the human-generated technosphere with Earth’s biosphere (D. P. Turner, 2011). The technobiosphere now influences global atmospheric chemistry and climate.
Technosphere: The sum of all human artifacts, including buildings, roads, machines, and electronic devices. It is maintained by a flow of material and energy from the geosphere, biosphere, and sun (Haff, 2014).
Troposphere: The lowest layer of the atmosphere (heights to 20 kilometers). It contains approximately 75 percent of the atmosphere’s mass and is involved in active exchange of mass and energy with the planet’s surface.