States of Maximum Thermodynamic Efficiency In Daisyworld

Pujol, T. “States of Maximum Thermodynamic Efficiency In Daisyworld.” In EGS General Assembly Conference Abstracts , p. 6. 2002.

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Daisyworld is the simplest example used to illustrate the implications of the Gaia hypothesis. The interaction between the environment and the biota follows from the assumption of using daisies with different colours (i.e., albedos) than that of the bare earth. Then, the amount of daisies may modify the energy absorbed by the planet. In the classical version of Daisyworld, turbulent fluxes adopt a diffusive approximation, which clearly constraints the range of values for the solar insolation from which biota may grow in the planet. Here we apply the maximum entropy principle (MEP) to Daisyworld. We conclude that the MEP sets the maximum range of values for the solar insolation with a non-zero amount of daisies. Outside this range, daisies cannot grow in the planet for any physically realistic heat flux. Inside this range, the distribution of daisies is set to agree with the MEP. The range of values for the solar insolation from which biota stabilises the climate is substantially enlarged in comparison with the classical version of Daisyworld.