All systems operating away from thermodynamic equilibrium develop structures. The planet Earth will always be far away from thermodynamic equilibrium because of the strongly differing solar radiation input as a function of latitude and season. Hence, the differential heating of the surface and also the atmosphere must lead to temperature gradients, in turn causing pressure gradients that create currents in the ocean and the wind in the atmosphere. On a rotating sphere (in reality the geoid, which is close to a rotational ellipsoid) these flows form low and high pressure systems both in the ocean and the atmosphere which are able to reduce latitudinal gradients but never come close to thermodynamic equilibrium because of continuing differential heating. The average temperatures and flow fields, as well as their strong spatial and temporal variability, are a function of land/sea distribution and atmospheric composition, especially depending on water and ice in...
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© 2011 Springer-Verlag
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Grassl, H. (2011). Climate Modeling, Global Warming and Weather Prediction, Introduction to. In: Meyers, R. (eds) Extreme Environmental Events. Springer, New York, NY. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-1-4419-7695-6_6
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