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PROF.BRYAN KARNEY: Welcome.

This is week one of our course for this term, which isOur Energetic Earth.

And in this course what we're going to do is do an overview of the planet.We want to see the energy systems.

We want to see the way they transform and see the way they take place.And we thought it was appropriate to start at a spot like this.

This is a spot of pretty impressive energy transformations.

Where we're at, of course, is the famous Niagara Falls.

And what we have behind me here is, of course, an amazing energytransformation system that's taking place.

It's water.

It's water that's flowing.

The water is going to flow over this magnificent [INAUDIBLE]into this chasm andvalley down below.

What you're looking at, of course, is going to be a transformation of waterpowerand gravity into kinetic energy, and sound, and mist, and other changesthat we're going to see as we progress through the day.

But what you're actually looking at here is not so much just water, andnot justso much gravity.

But what you're actually seeing is really a distilled concentrated effectof solar energy.

What we have in our [? trust or ?] energy systems, in our overall Earthenergy systems, is in fact continuous processes.

Processes like sunshine on water that takes place over a continuous, veryextended period of time.

But then we get concentrated effects.

And so what we have upstream of this Niagara Falls is a large catchment.And thecatchment, of course, is collecting precipitation.

And the precipitation originated mostly by evaporation over the oceans.And so what we have is a process of energy change and transformation thatcauses evaporation because of solar energy.

That produces precipitation because of cooling.

The precipitation is concentrated over a whole basin, and then it flows andit reaches this point of concentration.

And in fact, that's what the Earth is always doing.

It's always doing these processes of dispersal of energy systems, but thena concentration and a focus and sometimes we get dramatic effects.

And in this course, we'll talk about waterfalls like the one behind me.But we'll

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also learn about things like thunderstorms and hurricanes andtornadoes, which are also a kind of a focusing system ofour energetic planet.

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