| Entropy Production by Earth System Processes | p. 1 |
| Introduction | p. 1 |
| Entropy Production of Climate Systems | p. 2 |
| Earth's Climate System | p. 3 |
| Other Planetary Climate Systems | p. 4 |
| The Principles of Minimum and Maximum Entropy Production | p. 5 |
| Heat Transport and Minimum Entropy Production | p. 6 |
| Heat Transport and Maximum Entropy Production | p. 7 |
| Maximum Entropy Productionina Planetary Context | p. 10 |
| Minimization Versus Maximization of Entropy Production | p. 11 |
| Entropy Production and Life on Earth | p. 12 |
| Environmental Effects of Biotic Activity | p. 12 |
| The Gaia Hypothesis | p. 14 |
| Optimization and Entropy Production Within the Biosphere | p. 14 |
| Structure of This Book | p. 16 |
| Non-equilibrium Thermodynamics in an Energy-Rich Universe | p. 21 |
| Introduction | p. 21 |
| Time's Arrow | p. 22 |
| Cosmological Setting | p. 24 |
| Complexity Rising | p. 26 |
| Stumbling into the MEP Racket: An Historical Perspective | p. 33 |
| Maximum Entropy Production and Non-equilibrium Statistical Mechanics | p. 41 |
| Introduction | p. 42 |
| Boltzmann, Gibbs, Shannon, Jaynes | p. 43 |
| Macroscopic Reproducibility | p. 45 |
| The Concept of Caliber | p. 47 |
| Path Information Formalism of NESM | p. 47 |
| New Results Far from Equilibrium | p. 49 |
| Maximum Entropy Production (MEP) | p. 50 |
| The Fluctuation Theorem (FT) | p. 51 |
| Self-Organized Criticality(SOC) | p. 52 |
| Thermodynamics of Life | p. 53 |
| Further Prospects | p. 53 |
| Using Ecology to Quantify Organization in Fluid Flows | p. 57 |
| Introduction | p. 57 |
| Constraint Among Biotic Processes | p. 58 |
| Quantifying Constraint in Fluid Flow | p. 61 |
| Identifying Flow Bottlenecks | p. 64 |
| Conclusion | p. 64 |
| Cosmological and Biological Reproducibility: Limits on the Maximum Entropy Production Principle | p. 67 |
| Maximum Entropy Production and Reproducibility | p. 67 |
| Cosmological Reproducibility | p. 68 |
| The Entropy of an Observable Universe Must Start Low | p. 68 |
| Expansion Does Not Increase the Entropy of the Universe | p. 70 |
| Return of the Heat Death | p. 71 |
| Biological Reproducibility | p. 73 |
| Does Life Increase the Total Entropy Growth over What It Would Be Without Life? | p. 73 |
| Applying the Maximum Entropy Principle to Biological Evolution | p. 75 |
| Does the MEP Imply That Life Is Common in the Universe? | p. 76 |
| Entropy Production in Turbulent Mixing | p. 79 |
| Introduction | p. 79 |
| MEP in Classical Thermodynamics | p. 82 |
| MEP in Two-Dimensional Turbulence | p. 84 |
| Application to Stellar Systems | p. 88 |
| Conclusions | p. 89 |
| Entropy Production of Atmospheric Heat Transport | p. 93 |
| Introduction | p. 93 |
| Entropy Production in an Idealized Dry Atmosphere | p. 95 |
| Global Budget of Energy and Entropy | p. 96 |
| Sources of Entropy Production | p. 96 |
| Theoretical Upper Bound of Entropy Production | p. 97 |
| Testing Maximum Entropy Production with Atmospheric General Circulation Models | p. 98 |
| Simulated Entropy Production in the Climatological Mean | p. 98 |
| Comparingthe Analytic MEP Solution to the Simulated Atmosphere | p. 99 |
| Sensitivity of Entropy Production to Internal Parameters | p. 101 |
| Climatological Implications | p. 103 |
| Water Vapor and Entropy Production in the Earth's Atmosphere | p. 107 |
| Introduction | p. 107 |
| Idealized Cycles | p. 110 |
| Cycle A: Pure Dehumidifier | p. 110 |
| Cycle B: Atmospheric Dehumidifier and Water Vapor Expansion | p. 112 |
| Cycle C: Sensible Heat Transport | p. 114 |
| Dehumidifier Versus Heat Engine | p. 115 |
| Frictional Dissipation in Falling Precipitation | p. 116 |
| Entropy Budget of the Earth's Atmosphere | p. 117 |
| Thermodynamics of the Ocean Circulation: A Global Perspective on the Ocean System and Living Systems | p. 121 |
| Introduction | p. 121 |
| Calculation of Entropy Production | p. 123 |
| Model Description and Experimental Method | p. 124 |
| Entropy Production in a Steady State | p. 126 |
| Entropy Production During Transition Among Multiple Steady States | p. 127 |
| Entropy Production During Evolution of Structure | p. 128 |
| Analogy Between Ocean System and Living System | p. 130 |
| Entropy and the Shaping of the Landscape by Water | p. 135 |
| Introduction | p. 135 |
| Early Work by Leopold and Langbein | p. 136 |
| Scaling Laws in Hydrology | p. 138 |
| Thermodynamics of Fractal Networks | p. 141 |
| Entropy and Shoreline Profiles | p. 144 |
| Concluding Remarks | p. 145 |
| Entropy Production in the Planetary Context | p. 147 |
| Equator-Pole Temperature Gradients of Planetary Atmospheres | p. 147 |
| Earth | p. 148 |
| Titan | p. 148 |
| Mars | p. 149 |
| Venus | p. 150 |
| Other Planets | p. 150 |
| Other Processes in Planetary Atmospheres | p. 150 |
| A Probabilistic Explanation for MEP | p. 151 |
| Dissipation and Heat Transport | p. 152 |
| Geomorphology and Dissipative Structures | p. 154 |
| The Yarkovsky Effect -Migration of Meteorites via a Photon Heat Engine | p. 155 |
| Dyson Sphere -The Ultimate Stage in Planetary Evolution | p. 157 |
| Concluding Remarks | p. 158 |
| The Free-Energy Transduction and Entropy Production in Initial Photosynthetic Reactions | p. 161 |
| Introduction | p. 161 |
| TheTwo State Kinetic Model | p. 162 |
| The Five State Model for Chlorophyll Based Photoconversion | p. 164 |
| Slip Coefficients and Forward Static Head State | p. 167 |
| Conclusions | p. 168 |
| Biotic Entropy Production and Global Atmosphere-Biosphere Interactions | p. 173 |
| Introduction | p. 173 |
| Photosynthetic Activity and Climatic Constraints | p. 175 |
| Climatic Constraints on Biotic Productivity | p. 175 |
| Dynamic Constraints of Terrestrial Energy- and Water Exchange | p. 177 |
| Biogeophysical Effects and Feedbacks | p. 178 |
| Vegetation Effects on Land Surface Characteristics | p. 178 |
| Climate Feedbacks of Terrestrial Vegetation | p. 179 |
| Biotic Entropy Production and MEP | p. 181 |
| Conditions for Biotic MEP States | p. 182 |
| Biotic States of MEP | p. 183 |
| Biotic MEP and Gaia | p. 186 |
| Conclusions | p. 187 |
| Coupled Evolution of Earth's Atmosphere and Biosphere | p. 191 |
| Introduction | p. 191 |
| The Earliest Earth:Its Atmosphere and Biosphere | p. 192 |
| What Was the Composition of the Prebiotic Atmosphere? | p. 192 |
| When Did Earth Acquirea Biosphere? | p. 192 |
| What Effect Did Primitive Life Have on the Early Atmosphere? | p. 193 |
| Long-Term Climate Evolution and the Biosphere | p. 195 |
| Atmospheric Redox Change: The Rise of Oxygen | p. 197 |
| Oxygen, Energy, and Life | p. 199 |
| Aerobic Versus Anaerobic Energetics | p. 199 |
| Why Complex Life Anywhere in the Universe Will Likely Use Oxygen | p. 200 |
| The Anomalous Nature of Earth's Current Atmosphere | p. 202 |
| Temperature, Biogenesis, and Biospheric Self-Organization | p. 207 |
| Introduction | p. 207 |
| Cosmology and Temperature | p. 208 |
| Biogenesis at Life's Upper Temperature Limit: A Hyperthermophilic Origin of Life | p. 208 |
| The Temperature Constraint on Biologic Evolution | p. 212 |
| Future Directions | p. 217 |
| Entropy and Gaia: Is There a Link Between MEP and Self-Regulation in the Climate System? | p. 223 |
| Introduction | p. 223 |
| Daisyworld | p. 224 |
| Model Formulation | p. 226 |
| Two-Component System | p. 229 |
| Multi-component System | p. 231 |
| Saturated Growth | p. 231 |
| A Two-Box Model | p. 233 |
| Slow Daisies | p. 234 |
| Discussion | p. 239 |
| Insights from Thermodynamics for the Analysis of Economic Processes | p. 243 |
| Introduction | p. 243 |
| Thermodynamic Constraints on Production and Consumption | p. 245 |
| Constraints at Macroeconomic Levels | p. 246 |
| Thermodynamics and the "Evolution" of Economic Processes | p. 248 |
| Information and Knowledge | p. 249 |
| Conclusion | p. 251 |
| Index | p. 255 |
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