Our Research
Our research aims to understand how the whole Earth functions as one complex system that is strongly shaped by interactions, what the role of life is within this system, and how humans alter it.
It is based around two central themes:
- The first theme is to use and apply the physical theory of non-equilibrium thermodynamics to Earth system processes and interactions, specifically regarding the generation, dissipation and conversions of free energy, the part of energy that is able to perform work. If it were not for continuous work being performed by Earth system processes, motion, chemical reactions, and dynamics would come to a halt. In our research we aim to understand how this free energy is generated within the Earth system, from heat to motion to geochemical cycling, and how life contributes to, interacts with, and alters these transformations. Recent examples for this research are:
- How does life affect the Earth’s interior dynamics?
- What are the limits to wind power as a renewable energy resource?
- How was the chemical free energy generated to drive the emergence of life?
- The second theme is biodiversity as a central concept to describe life and its effect of biogeochemical cycling. One of the fundamental aspects of life is that it is inherently diverse. It has many ways to “do things”, and it is able to adapt and evolve to environmental change. In our research, we aim to account for this complexity by using optimality approaches and approaches that are able to represent aspects of diversity. Examples of our recent research are:
- How is vegetation biodiversity related to climate?
- Which role do geologic processes, climate and vegetation play in cycling phosphorus?
Our Approach
We work mostly with theory, simple models and more complex, numerical simulation models, focussing mostly at the large- to planetary scale. We do not do field or laboratory work. Theoretical work focuses mostly on how thermodynamics is applied to Earth system processes, while numerical simulation models, such as models of the climate system or terrestrial vegetation, provide our testing grounds for our research. In our group, we develop the JEna DIversity (JEDI) model, a global vegetation model that explicitly represents diversity of vegetation functioning.
Our Group
We are a so-called Max Planck Research Group (MPRG) and as such an independent unit hosted within the Max Planck Institute for Biogeochemistry. Besides the group leader, Dr. Axel Kleidon, the group currently consists of 3 postdocs, 7 doctoral students, one master student, and support staff (partially shared).
Our Funding
Most of the group’s activity is funded by the Max Planck Society, a non-profit organization funded primarily by German federal research funds and which is devoted to conduct basic research. This source of funding with ʻno strings attachedʼ allows us to perform research without prejudices, preconceptions, or personal, financial, or political conflicts of interest. Because our research is often high risk and goes against the established wisdoms and preconceptions in the field, the base funding that we receive from the Max Planck Society provides an ideal work environment to perform our research.
>> more on our funding sources
>> more on the Max Planck Society
>> more on the Max Planck Institute for Biogeochemistry
News
Media coverage 31 Jan 2012
Cover story in New Scientist notes our group's contribution to understanding near-surface wind power and jet stream wind power
Invited Talk Jan 27 2012
Lee Miller will be giving the invited colloquim "Limits and consequences of large-scale deployment of renewable energy technologies" at the University of Kansas Geography Dept.
Seminar Jan 10 2012
Axel Kleidon will present on "Thermodynamic limits to structure and functioning of land surface processes" at the University of Hohenheim near Stuttgart.
Astrobiology School Dec 11 - 20 2011
Eugenio Simoncini will attend the first Sao Paulo Advanced School of Astrobiology
Poster at AGU 2011 Dec 8 2011
Lee Miller, Ryan Pavlick, Fabian Gans, and Axel Kleidon presented Solar and wind energy extraction within the Earth System: How are they related but different regarding power potentials and climatic impacts
PhD Defense 2 Dec 2011
Lee Miller successfully defended his doctoral thesis at the University of Hamburg. Congratulations, Dr. Miller!
Media coverage 2 Dec 2011
The official blog of the European Geosciences Union highlights our group's work on jet stream wind power in Why are jet streams not good wind energy sources?
Departing PostDoc 31 Oct 2011
Darren Drewry completed his NSF fellowship and starts his position at NASA-JPL. Good luck with your new job, Darren!
Position available 01 Oct 2011
Postdoc position on thermodynamics of land surface hydrology is available within the group.
Limits to the Anthropocene Symposium Sep 22 - 24 2011
Darren Drewry and Axel Kleidon present on natural limits to agricultural production and renewable energy.
iLEAPS Conference -- 3rd prize Sep 18 - 23 2011
Philipp Porada won the 3rd prize at the 3rd iLEAPS Science Conference poster competition for the poster: A process-based model of global lichen productivity (P. Porada, A. Kleidon)
iLEAPS Conference Sep 18 - 23 2011
Darren Drewry, Axel Kleidon, Ryan Pavlick and Philipp Porada will present their work on land surface and vegetation modelling.
Workshop Sep 12 - 14 2011
Eugenio Simoncini will chair the 2nd workshop of the Thermodynamics, Disequilibrium and Evolution (TDE) - NAI Focus Group, in Florence. TDE Activities
Seminar Aug 26 2011
Axel Kleidon gives a talk on renewable energy within the Earth system at ABB research, Switzerland.
Summer School Aug 1-7 2011
Lee Miller attended the Second Transdisciplinary Summer School on Climate Engineering in Banff, Alberta (Canada)
Departing PostDoc 31 Jul 2011
James Dyke leaves the group to move to a lecturer position at the University of Southhampton in the UK. Good luck with your new job, James!
Research Funding 7 Jul 2011
Our proposal entitled Thermodynamics and Soil-Vegetation-Atmosphere Transfer processes of Catchments As Organized Systems (CAOS) has been funded by the German Research Foundation (DFG).
Seminar 5 Jul 2011
Eugenio Simoncini gave a talk at the ISSOL - Origins Conference, Montpellier, France, about Hydrothermal Vent modeling. Watch the seminar
New PostDoc 1 Jul 2011
Nathaniel Virgo? joined the group as a new PostDoc. He will contribute to the Helmholtz Alliance “Planetary Evolution and Life”.
Media coverage 12 Jun 2011
The Neue Zuercher Zeitung covers the debate about limits to wind power in their Sunday edition.
Departing PostDoc 31 May 2011
After more than four years, Stan Schymanski leaves the group to move to a new position at the ETH in Zurich, Switzerland.
Media coverage 29 May 2011
Nature Physics has a piece discussing the response to the New Scientist article about our work on the limits to renewable energy.
Media coverage 27 May 2011
The Focus magazine has an article on limits and impacts of renewable energy that covers some of our research and has a related online commentary.
Blog post 03 May 2011
Our work on the limits to wind power is discussed on Roger Pielke’s climate blog.
Press release 27 Apr 2011
We issued a press release to clarify our research on limits to wind power. Also, we added a FAQ to our research, which can be found here.
PhD Defense 18 Apr 2011
Bjoern Reu successfully defended his doctoral thesis at the University of Bonn. Congratulations, Dr. Reu!
Presentation 12 April 2011
K. Bohn gave a presentation at the UFZ in Leipzig on Towards Modelling a diverse adaptive biosphere - The JEna DIversity Model and community structure.
Media coverage 30 Mar 2011
The New Scientist covers our work on free energy generation within the Earth system and limits to renewable energy.
Presentation 22 Mar 2011
Axel Kleidon gave a talk on How does the Earth system generate and maintain thermodynamic disequilibrium and what does it imply for the future of the planet? at the Department of Meteorology, University of Reading, UK.
Recent Publications
Submitted/In discussion:
A Kleidon, Was leistet die Erde? Thermodynamische Grenzen des Erdsysttems und deren Bedeutung für eine nachhaltige Zukunft, Physik in unserer Zeit, submitted.
A Kleidon, E Zehe, H Lin, Thermodynamics of the Critical Zone and its relevance to hydropedology. in: H Lin (ed) Hydropedology: Integration of Soil Science and Hydrology, Elsevier, submitted.
Accepted/In press:
A. Kleidon (accepted) How does the earth system generate and maintain thermodynamic disequilibrium and what does it imply for the future of the planet?, accepted for publication in Phil Trans A. Preprint available on arXiv:1103.2014v1.
2011:
E. Simoncini, M.J. Russell, A. Kleidon , (2011) Modeling free energy availability from Hadean Hydrothermal Systems to the first metabolism Orig. Life and Evol. Biosph.
L Miller, F Gans, A Kleidon, (2011) Jet stream wind power as a renewable energy resource: little power, big impacts in Earth System Dynamics, 2, pp. 201-212.
A Kleidon, F Gans, L Miller, R Pavlick, (2011) Sonne, Wind und Wellen -- Natürliche Grenzen erneuerbarer Energien im Erdsystem Δ, in: Beckmann, Hurtado (eds.), Kraftwerkstechnik, Band 3, TK Verlag, Neuruppin, pp. 463-470.
Porada, P., Kleidon, A., Schymanski, S. J., (2011) Entropy production of soil hydrological processes and its maximisation, Earth Syst. Dynam., 2, 179-190, doi:10.5194/esd-2-179-2011
B. Reu, S. Zaehle, R. Proulx, K. Bohn, A. Kleidon, R. Pavlick, S. Schmidtlein (2011) The role of plant functional trade-offs for biodiversity changes and biome shifts under scenarios of global climatic change, Biogeosciences., 8, 1255-1266.
Brunsell, N. A., Schymanski, S. J., Kleidon, A. (2011) Quantifying the thermodynamic entropy budget of the land surface: is this useful?, Earth Syst. Dynam., 2, 87-103, doi:10.5194/esd-2-87-2011
J.G. Dyke, F. Gans, A. Kleidon (2011) Towards understanding how surface life can affect interior geological processes: a non-equilibrium thermodynamics approach, Earth Syst. Dynam., 2, 139-160. doi:10.5194/esd-2-139-2011
K. Bohn, J. G. Dyke, R. Pavlick, B. Reineking, B. Reu, A. Kleidon (2011) The relative importance of seed competition, resource competition and perturbations on community structure, Biogeosciences, 8, 1107-1120. doi:10.5194/bg-8-1107-2011
S. Arens, A. Kleidon (2011) Eco-hydrological versus supply-limited weathering regimes and the potential for biotic enhancement of weathering at the global scale, Applied Geochemistry, 26, S274-S278. doi:10.1016/j.apgeochem.2011.03.079
L.M. Miller, F. Gans, A. Kleidon (2011) Estimating maximum global land surface wind power extractability and associated climatic consequences, Earth Syst. Dynam. 2. 1-12, doi:10.5194/esd-2-1-2011.
2010:
C Buendía, A Kleidon, and A Porporato, 2010. The role of tectonic uplift, climate, and vegetation in the long-term terrestrial phosphorous cycle, Biogeosciences, 7, 2025-2038.
DT Drewry, P Kumar, S Long, C Bernacchi, X-Z Liang, M Sivapalan, 2010. Ecohydrological responses of dense canopies to environmental variability. 1. Interplay between vertical structure and photosynthetic pathway. Journal of Geophysical Research, Vol. 115, G04022, doi:10.1029/2010JG001340.
DT Drewry, P Kumar, S Long, C Bernacchi, X-Z Liang, M Sivapalan, 2010. Ecohydrological responses of dense canopies to environmental variability. 2. Role of acclimation under elevated CO2. Journal of Geophysical Research, Vol. 115, G04023, doi:10.1029/2010JG001341.
J Dyke, A Kleidon, 2010. The Maximum Entropy Production Principle: Its Theoretical Foundations and Applications to the Earth System, Entropy, 12(3), 613--630.
A Kleidon, 2010. Life as the major driver of planetary geochemical disequilibrium. Reply to comments on "Life, hierarchy, and the thermodynamic machinery of planet Earth", Physics of Life Reviews, 7, 473-476.
A Kleidon, 2010. Life, hierarchy, and the thermodynamic machinery of planet Earth, Physics of Life Reviews, 7, 424-460.
A Kleidon, 2010. Non-equilibrium thermodynamics, maximum entropy production and Earth-system evolution, Philosophical Transactions of the Royal Society A, 368: 181-196.
A Kleidon, Y Malhi, and PM Cox, 2010. Maximum entropy production in environmental and ecological systems, Philosophical Transactions of the Royal Society B, 365, 1297-1302.
A Kleidon, 2010. A basic introduction to the thermodynamics of the Earth system far from equilibrium and maximum entropy production, Philosophical Transactions of the Royal Society B, 365, 1303-1315.
P Porada, 2010. Thesis: Entropy Budget of the Soil Hydrological Cycle. Supervisors: Prof. Dr. W Lucht, Humboldt University Berlin, Dr. A Kleidon, MPI Biogeochemistry Jena.
B. Reu, R. Proulx, K. Bohn, J. Dyke, A. Kleidon, R. Pavlick, S. Schmidtlein (2010) The role of climate and plant functional trade-offs in shaping global biome and biodiversity patterns. Global Ecology and Biogeography, 20: 570–581. doi: 10.1111/j.1466-8238.2010.00621.x
B. Schaefli, C. J. Harman, M. Sivapalan, and S. J. Schymanski, 2010. Hydrologic predictions in a changing environment: behavioral modeling, Hydrol. Earth Syst. Sci. Discuss., 7, 7779-7808, 2010. doi:10.5194/hessd-7-7779-2010
E. Simoncini, A. Kleidon, E. Gallori, 2010. The Emergence of Life: Thermodynamics of Chemical Free Energy Generation in Off - Axis Hydrothermal Vent Systems and its Consequences for Compartmentalization and Life's Origins, J. of Cosmology, 10, 3325 - 3344.
SJ Schymanski, A Kleidon, M Stieglitz, and J Narula, 2010. Maximum entropy production allows a simple representation of heterogeneity in semiarid ecosystems, Philosophical Transactions of the Royal Society B, 365, 1449-1455.
X Xu, A Kleidon, L Miller, S Wang, L Wang, and G Dong, 2010. Late Quaternary glaciation in the Tianshan and implications for palaeoclimatic change: a review, Boreas, 39(2): 215-232.
Contact Us:
- Want to visit us? Let us know. Here is some information of how to get around Jena and how to find us (long version with public transport information).
- Interested in internships, graduate research, or postdoc opportunities? Contact us.
- Contact: Dr. Axel Kleidon, Max-Planck-Institute for Biogeochemistry, Hans-Knoell-Str. 10, 07745 Jena, Germany. Ph: +49-3641-576217. E-mail: axel.kleidon AT bgc-jena DOT mpg DOT de.
