Earth System Dynamics
Earth System Dynamics
ESD
Articles | Volume 13, issue 2
Articles | Volume 13, issue 2
https://doi.org/10.5194/esd-13-1021-2022
© Author(s) 2022. This work is distributed under
the Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 License.
https://doi.org/10.5194/esd-13-1021-2022
© Author(s) 2022. This work is distributed under
the Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 License.
Articles | Volume 13, issue 2
Research article
 | 
15 Jun 2022
Research article |  | 15 Jun 2022

Lotka's wheel and the long arm of history: how does the distant past determine today's global rate of energy consumption?

Timothy J. Garrett, Matheus R. Grasselli, and Stephen Keen

Related authors

A global analysis of the fractal properties of clouds revealing anisotropy of turbulence across scales
Karlie N. Rees, Timothy J. Garrett, Thomas D. DeWitt, Corey Bois, Steven K. Krueger, and Jérôme C. Riedi
EGUsphere, https://doi.org/10.5194/egusphere-2024-552,https://doi.org/10.5194/egusphere-2024-552, 2024
Short summary
Finite domains cause bias in measured and modeled distributions of cloud sizes
Thomas D. DeWitt and Timothy J. Garrett
EGUsphere, https://doi.org/10.5194/egusphere-2024-67,https://doi.org/10.5194/egusphere-2024-67, 2024
Short summary
Climatologically invariant scale invariance seen in distributions of cloud horizontal sizes
Thomas D. DeWitt, Timothy J. Garrett, Karlie N. Rees, Corey Bois, Steven K. Krueger, and Nicolas Ferlay
Atmos. Chem. Phys., 24, 109–122, https://doi.org/10.5194/acp-24-109-2024,https://doi.org/10.5194/acp-24-109-2024, 2024
Short summary
Time-resolved measurements of the densities of individual frozen hydrometeors and of fresh snowfall
Dhiraj Kumar Singh, Eric Pardyjak, and Timothy Garrett
Atmos. Meas. Tech. Discuss., https://doi.org/10.5194/amt-2023-148,https://doi.org/10.5194/amt-2023-148, 2023
Preprint under review for AMT
Short summary
Idealized simulation study of the relationship of disdrometer sampling statistics with the precision of precipitation rate measurement
Karlie N. Rees and Timothy J. Garrett
Atmos. Meas. Tech., 14, 7681–7691, https://doi.org/10.5194/amt-14-7681-2021,https://doi.org/10.5194/amt-14-7681-2021, 2021
Short summary
More articles (8)

Related subject area

Management of the Earth system: sustainability science
Governing change: a dynamical systems approach to understanding the stability of environmental governance
Nusrat Molla, John DeIonno, Thilo Gross, and Jonathan Herman
Earth Syst. Dynam., 13, 1677–1688, https://doi.org/10.5194/esd-13-1677-2022,https://doi.org/10.5194/esd-13-1677-2022, 2022
Short summary
Disentangling the climate divide with emotional patterns: a network-based mindset reconstruction approach
Roger Cremades and Massimo Stella
Earth Syst. Dynam., 13, 1473–1489, https://doi.org/10.5194/esd-13-1473-2022,https://doi.org/10.5194/esd-13-1473-2022, 2022
Short summary
Coupling human and natural systems for sustainability: experience from China's Loess Plateau
Bojie Fu, Xutong Wu, Zhuangzhuang Wang, Xilin Wu, and Shuai Wang
Earth Syst. Dynam., 13, 795–808, https://doi.org/10.5194/esd-13-795-2022,https://doi.org/10.5194/esd-13-795-2022, 2022
Short summary
Groundwater storage dynamics in the world's large aquifer systems from GRACE: uncertainty and role of extreme precipitation
Mohammad Shamsudduha and Richard G. Taylor
Earth Syst. Dynam., 11, 755–774, https://doi.org/10.5194/esd-11-755-2020,https://doi.org/10.5194/esd-11-755-2020, 2020
Short summary
Linking resilience and robustness and uncovering their trade-offs in coupled infrastructure systems
Mehran Homayounfar, Rachata Muneepeerakul, John M. Anderies, and Chitsomanus P. Muneepeerakul
Earth Syst. Dynam., 9, 1159–1168, https://doi.org/10.5194/esd-9-1159-2018,https://doi.org/10.5194/esd-9-1159-2018, 2018
Short summary
More articles (14)

Cited articles

Ayres, R. U. and Warr, B.: The economic growth engine, Edward Elgar, Cheltenham, UK, ISBN 978 1 84844 182 8, 2009. a
Ayres, R. U., Ayres, L. W., and Warr, B.: Exergy, power and work in the US economy, 1900–1998, Energy, 28, 219–273, https://doi.org/10.1016/S0360-5442(02)00089-0, 2003. a
Bettencourt, L. M. A., Lobo, J., Helbing, D., Kühnert, C., and West, G. B.: Growth, innovation, scaling, and the pace of life in cities, P. Natl. Acad. Sci. USA, 104, 7301–7306, 2007. a
BP: Statistical review of world energy 2020, https://www.bp.com/en/global/corporate/energy-economics/statistical-review-of-world-energy.html (last access: April 2021), 2020. a
Deutch, J.: Decoupling Economic Growth and Carbon Emissions, Joule, 1, 3–5, https://doi.org/10.1016/j.joule.2017.08.011, 2017. a
More articles (29)
Download
Short summary
Current world economic production is rising relative to energy consumption. This increase in production efficiency suggests that carbon dioxide emissions can be decoupled from economic activity through technological change. We show instead a nearly fixed relationship between energy consumption and a new economic quantity, historically cumulative economic production. The strong link to the past implies inertia may play a more dominant role in societal evolution than is generally assumed.
Read more
Altmetrics
Final-revised paper
Preprint