Hawaii Research Paper Example | Topics and Well Written Essays - 1250 words

Hawaii - Research Paper Example The islands present a variety of features from volcanic eruptions to glacial features on Mauna Kea volcano as well as abundant rain forests of tropical trees, ferns and flowering plants to desert grass and cactus. Hawaiian physical geography has a number of components that include: In physical geography, according to Gabler, Peterson & Trapasso (2006), earth is taken as a system with inputs of energy. Earth is otherwise a closed system to the input and output of matter. Other than meteorites and gas molecules, nothing can enter the earth’s surface. Another example of earth’s system being a closed one is hydrosphere. Water in the atmosphere is present in all its three forms – liquid, gas and hard ice. It can change shape from one state to another but the output remains the same in the system. The same is not true of the earth’s sub systems. That’s why they are called open systems. Flow of energy is unhindered over a sub system’s physical boundaries as inputs and outputs. Taking the example of a stream as an open sub system where energy remains in the form of soil, rock fragments, solar energy and precipitation; all these forms of energy enter the stream excluding heat energy that scatters into the atmosphere and the str eam bed. Water and the matter of the stream ends into the ocean and the stream system get input from the precipitation. Same is true of the physical geography of Hawaii. Due to continuous eruption of lava from with in the ocean body, Hawaii islands have come into form. Hawaii’s coastlines present one of the most vivid and changing environment. All spheres of earth meet at its coastline—hydrosphere, lithosphere, atmosphere, and biosphere. In the Hawaii islands, the movement of energy and processes happen the same, as energy release from lava eruption and sun energy warms water bodies and oceans; water evaporates into the atmosphere and releases back in the form of rain on land and pass through streams and rivers, and finally enter