Related papers: The Structural Case for the Eco-Civilization Parad…
Ecosystems can undergo sudden shifts to undesirable states, but recent studies with simple single species ecosystems have demonstrated that advance warning can be provided by the slowing down of population dynamics near a tipping point.…
The consensus that complexity begets stability in ecosystems was challenged in the seventies, a result recently extended to ecologically-inspired networks. The approaches assume the existence of a feasible equilibrium, i.e. with positive…
How large ecosystems can create and maintain the remarkable biodiversity we see in nature is probably one of the biggest open questions in science, attracting attention from different fields, from Theoretical Ecology to Mathematics and…
Spatial distribution of the human population is distinctly heterogeneous, e.g. showing significant difference in the population density between urban and rural areas. In the historical perspective, i.e. on the timescale of centuries, the…
The complexity of an ecological community can be distilled into a network, where diverse interactions connect species in a web of dependencies. Species interact not only with each other but indirectly through environmental effects, however…
Climate response metrics are used to quantify the Earth's climate response to anthropogenic changes of atmospheric CO2. Equilibrium Climate Sensitivity (ECS) is one such metric that measures the equilibrium response to CO2 doubling.…
Global warming due to human-made gases, mainly CO2, is already 0.8{\deg}C and deleterious climate impacts are growing worldwide. More warming is 'in the pipeline' because Earth is out of energy balance, with absorbed solar energy exceeding…
We develop a three-timescale framework for modelling climate change and introduce a space-heterogeneous one-dimensional energy balance model. This model, addressing temperature fluctuations from rising carbon dioxide levels and the…
The transition from a fossil-based energy economy to one based on renewable energy is driven by the double challenge of climate change and resource depletion. Building a renewable energy infrastructure requires an upfront energy investment…
We investigate the thermodynamics as well as the population dynamics of ecosystems based on a stochastic approach in which the number of individuals of the several species of the ecosystem are treated as stochastic variables. The several…
Extreme weather is one of the main mechanisms through which climate change will directly impact human society. Coping with such change as a global community requires markedly improved understanding of how global warming drives extreme…
When the climate system is forced, e.g. by emission of greenhouse gases, it responds on multiple time scales. As temperatures rise, feedback processes might intensify or weaken. Current methods to analyze feedback strength, however, do not…
A policy compass indicates the direction in which an institution is going in terms of three general qualities. The three qualities are: suppression, harmony and passion. Any formal institution can develop a policy compass to examine the…
According to the standard liquid-water definition, the Earth is only partially habitable. We reconsider planetary habitability in the framework of energy-balance models, the simplest seasonal models in physical climatology, to assess the…
There is a general need of elaborating energy-effective solutions for managing our increasingly dense interconnected world. The problem should be tackled in multiple dimensions -technology, society, economics, law, regulations, and…
In this study, we introduce a physical framework to analyse and classify the thermal regimes governed by tidal heating and stellar irradiation. Although all planetary systems are exposed to stellar radiation, this source is not always the…
MEDEAS (Modelling the Energy Development under Environmental And Socioeconomic constraint) World is a new global-aggregated energy-economy-environmental model, which runs from 1995 to 2050. In this work, we tested the MEDEAS world model to…
In a world increasingly dominated by AI applications, an understudied aspect is the carbon and social footprint of these power-hungry algorithms that require copious computation and a trove of data for training and prediction. While…
The concept of smart cities is driven by the need to enhance citizens' quality of life. It is estimated that 70% of the world population will live in urban areas by 2050. The electric grid is the energy backbone of smart city deployments.…
Planetary surface habitability has so far been considered, in the main, upon a global scale. The increasing number of 3D modelling studies of (exo)planetary climate has highlighted the need for a more nuanced understanding of surface…