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8 Entropy Production of Atmospheric Heat Transport
We examine the rate of entropy produced by the atmospheric general circulation and the hypothesis that it adjusts itself towards a macroscopic state...
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10 Thermodynamics of the Ocean Circulation: A Global Perspective on the Ocean System and Living Systems
In this chapter, we investigate thermodynamics in a global-scale open ocean circulation and discuss the physical properties of “living systems”, that...
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16 Temperature, Biogenesis, and Biospheric Self-Organization
We argue that the biosphere has evolved deterministically as a selforganized system, given the initial conditions of the Sun-Earth system. With...
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18 Insights from Thermodynamics for the Analysis of Economic Processes
The laws of thermodynamics constrain transformation of materials and energy, and thus have implications for economic processes. This paper provides...
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1 Entropy Production by Earth System Processes
Degradation of energy to lower temperatures and the associated production of entropy is a general direction for Earth system processes, ranging from...
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15 Coupled Evolution of Earth’s Atmosphere and Biosphere
Earth’s climate has remained conducive to life for more than 3.5 billion years, probably because of higher concentrations of CO2 and CH4 greenhouse...
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12 Entropy Production in the Planetary Context
In this paper I review some applications of nonequilibrium thermodynamics to planetary science. Of particular importance are the horizontal and...
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13 The Free-Energy Transduction and Entropy Production in Initial Photosynthetic Reaction
Initial photosynthetic reactions in bacterial photosynthesis are modeled in this chapter as transitions among discrete states of integral membrane...
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17 Entropy and Gaia: Is There a Link Between MEP and Self-Regulation in the Climate System?
The Gaia hypothesis posits that the Earth’s climate is self-regulating, while the maximum entropy production (MEP) principle suggests that the...
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3 Stumbling into the MEP Racket: An Historical Perspective
An historical tale is told of the author’s involvement with research on the possible application of a principle of maximum entropy production to...
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14 Biotic Entropy Production and Global Atmosphere-Biosphere Interactions
Atmospheric conditions constrain biotic activity through incoming solar radiation, temperature, and soil water availability on land. At the same time...
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9 Water Vapor and Entropy Production in the Earth’s Atmosphere
This chapter investigates the production of entropy by moist processes in the Earth’s climate system. The atmospheric circulation can be considered...
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2 Non-equilibrium Thermodynamics in an Energy-Rich Universe
Free energy, the ability to do work, is the most universal currency known in the natural sciences. In an expanding, non-equilibrated Universe, it is...
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4 Maximum Entropy Production and Non-equilibrium Statistical Mechanics
Over the last 30 years empirical evidence in favour of the Maximum Entropy Production (MEP) principle for non-equilibrium systems has been...
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7 Entropy Production in Turbulent Mixing
We review the statement and application of a Maximum Entropy Production (MEP) principle for the modeling of turbulence. More specifically it applies...
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6 Cosmological and Biological Reproducibility: Limits on the Maximum Entropy Production Principle
The Maximum Entropy Production principle (MEP) seems to be restricted to reproducible dissipative structures. To apply it to cosmology and biology,...
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11 Entropy and the Sha** of the Landscape by Water
We explore applications of thermodynamics to hydrology, in particular the application of extremization principles to self-organized river networks....
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5 Using Ecology to Quantify Organization in Fluid Flows
Numerous applications of variational principles derived from physical thermodynamics have been made to the description of development in living...
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Earth’s Heat and Temperature Field
The heat stored in the Earth provides the energy which drives the thermal convection caused by thermal buoyancy in the Earth’s liquid outer core and...
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Radioactive Decay and Rock Ages
The question of the age of the Earth and the Universe was long the subject of contentious discussion. Towards the end of the eighteenth century, it...