ABSTRACT
Geographical systems are in many respects the most complex phenomena that we confront, because they constitute the nexus of physical, ecological, and human systems. To be usefully understood, they must be treated as an integrated whole-but also in their parts, and in detail, since many of the most important interactions among their components take place locally. The problem of understanding the possible impacts of climate change immediately poses the question of how to deal with this complexity, because impacts are experienced at all scales from global to local, and the causal chains through which they propagate are both multifarious and characterized by numerous feedback loops.
