Abstract
During this Nato-Advanced Course devoted to the Role of Air-Sea Exchange in Geochemical Cycling, basic concepts like steady-state, residence time and response time, stability or instability of the system, were often evoked by several speakers. It was therefore important that the participants became rapidly acquainted with these concepts. In addition, it should be noted that in the literature these terms are not always well defined. Authors often neglect to consider the fundamental properties of their systems in terms of stationary state or stability before they develop their procedures for calculation and draw their conclusions. The aim of this chapter is to present simplified systems where these concepts appear clearly and their various basic properties can be easily shown. The more complicated geochemical cycles frequently exhibit behaviours similar to those of simplified systems which will be considered later. It is difficult, however, in complex systems to formulate theoretically a model without considerable simplifications and to distinguish then between the various factors influencing the response of the geochemical cycles.
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© 1986 D. Reidel Publishing Company
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Wollast, R. (1986). Basic Concepts in Geochemical Modelling. In: Buat-Ménard, P. (eds) The Role of Air-Sea Exchange in Geochemical Cycling. NATO ASI Series, vol 185. Springer, Dordrecht. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-94-009-4738-2_1
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-94-009-4738-2_1
Publisher Name: Springer, Dordrecht
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