Premium
Extremal principles for global climate models
Author(s) -
Mobbs S. D.
Publication year - 1982
Publication title -
quarterly journal of the royal meteorological society
Language(s) - English
Resource type - Journals
SCImago Journal Rank - 1.744
H-Index - 143
eISSN - 1477-870X
pISSN - 0035-9009
DOI - 10.1002/qj.49710845704
Subject(s) - parametrization (atmospheric modeling) , entropy production , entropy (arrow of time) , climatology , environmental science , statistical physics , climate model , climate change , mathematics , physics , thermodynamics , geology , quantum mechanics , radiative transfer , oceanography
Paltridge has recently hypothesized that the mean global climate operates near a state of maximum entropy production. In this paper an attempt is made to justify this hypothesis by parametrizing the eddy heat fluxes in terms of eddy diffusivities and using the local potential method of Glansdorff and Prigogine. With eddy diffusivities independent of the temperature and its gradient a principle of minimum entropy production is in fact found. However, by using a more realistic parametrization, a quantity closely related to entropy production is found to be maximized. The relevance of this to global climate models is discussed.