论文标题
理解地球作为整体系统：从盖亚假设到热力学最优和人类社会
Understanding the Earth as a whole system: From the Gaia Hypothesis to Thermodynamic Optimality and Human Societies
论文作者
论文摘要
整个部分的总和在科学方面具有悠久的传统。当然，这也适用于地球系统。由于其纯粹的物理到生命和人类活动的无数过程，地球是一个非常复杂的系统。因此，由于这种压倒性的复杂性，似乎没有什么可以简单而普遍的。我想在这里显示的是，通过将地球作为热力学系统制定，可以识别一般方向并推断出简单的功能，因为热力学对动力学施加了基本限制。在此描述的中心是能量转化和不平衡状态，这些状态是地球系统过程动力学的核心，从对流细胞到生物和人类社会。它们相互联系并通过能量和质量交换来相互作用，并最终会影响来自太阳的低熵太阳辐射的输入的多少，可以转化为自由能，能量能够执行工作，然后在能量被地球重新降低为高熵地面辐射。然后，地球的新兴热力学行为变得简单，因为动力学以热力学限制演变为运行。然后可以将在其极限边缘运行的地球系统过程的这种行为与先前描述的整体理论（例如Gaia假设）链接，并在所描述的紧急行为中相似。但是，这种热力学观点可以进一步发展，因为它也可以用来了解人类社会在地球系统中的作用以及通往可持续未来的潜在途径。因此，热力学与地球系统中的能量转换和相互作用一起提供了一个基础，以了解为什么整个地球系统比其球的总和更简单。
The notion that the whole is more than the sum of its parts has a long tradition in science. This, of course, also applies to the Earth system. With its myriad of processes, spanning from purely physical to life and human activity, the Earth is a vastly complex system. It may thus seem that there is nothing simple and general to say because of this overwhelming complexity. What I want to show here is that by formulating the Earth as a thermodynamic system, one can identify general directions and infer simple functioning because thermodynamics imposes fundamental limits on the dynamics. At the center of this description are energy conversions and states of disequilibrium, which are at the core of the dynamics of Earth system processes, from convection cells to living organisms and human societies. They are linked to each other and interact by their exchanges of energy and mass, and ultimately affect how much of the input of low entropy solar radiation from the Sun is converted into free energy, energy able to perform work, before the energy gets re-emitted by the Earth as high entropy terrestrial radiation. The emergent thermodynamic behavior of the Earth then becomes simple because the dynamics evolve to and operate at thermodynamic limits. Such behavior of Earth system processes operating at the edge of their limit can then be linked to previously described holistic theories, such as the Gaia hypothesis, with similarities in the described emergent behavior. Such a thermodynamic view, however, can go further, as it can also be used to understand the role of human societies in the Earth system and the potential pathways to a sustainable future. Thermodynamics taken together with the energy conversions and interactions within the Earth system can thus provide a basis to understand why the whole Earth system is more, and simpler, than the sum of its spheres.
