Environmental Superstatistics
Abstract
A thermodynamic device placed outdoors, or a local ecosystem, is subject to a variety of different temperatures given by short-tem (daily) and long-term (seasonal) variations. In the long term a superstatistical description makes sense, with a suitable distribution function f(beta) of inverse temperature beta over which ordinary statistical mechanics is averaged. We show that f(beta) is very different at different geographic locations, and typically exhibits a double-peak structure for long-term data. For some of our data sets we also find a systematic drift due to global warming. For a simple superstatistical model system we show that the response to global warming is stronger if temperature fluctuations are taken into account.
Keywords
Cite
@article{arxiv.1212.5783,
title = {Environmental Superstatistics},
author = {G. Cigdem Yalcin and Christian Beck},
journal= {arXiv preprint arXiv:1212.5783},
year = {2013}
}
Comments
37 figures. Significantly extended version, to appear in Physica A. Added new material in section 6 quantifying the stronger response to global warming if temperature fluctuations are taken into account. Concluding section 7 and several new references added