TheSyS – 2026
Indo – Max Planck Workshop on
Thermodynamics for Climate, Water and Urban Systems Sustainability
How do the laws of thermodynamics apply to the Earth system and to the pressing challenges associated with climate, water, extreme weather events and urban systems? The Earth system is complex, with many processes interacting at various spatial and temporal scales—from regional to global and from sub-hourly to multidecadal (and longer) timescales.
With human activity and growing urbanization, it appears that the system is becoming even more complicated. While the dynamics of the Earth system are known to be constrained by physical laws of conservation of energy, mass, momentum, and other conserved quantities, we nonetheless observe various forms of emergent patterns that reflect highly predictable outcomes—for example, climate classifications, surface energy balance partitioning, hydrologic classification schemes, fractal structures in river basins and vegetation networks and characteristic features of urban environments. How does this simplicity emerge from the complexity of the Earth system?
As it turns out, the simplicity observed in the Earth system's functioning is primarily shaped by the constraints imposed by the second law of thermodynamics, specifically by how it limits how much work natural and human processes can perform. Focusing on work provides a novel way to look at the Earth system, yielding a profound understanding of how the whole system functions. It offers a unified approach to quantify energy balance partitioning, hydrologic cycling, biosphere activity, human effects, urban system behavior, and climate change.
This workshop aims to provide the fundamentals for understanding the Earth system - spanning from climate, water, and human systems using thermodynamic concepts, limits, and optimality principles. Using hands-on projects, participants will learn how thermodynamics sets limits on physical processes, how it constrains the sensitivity of Earth system components to climate changes, and how it leads to emergent behavior. It uses examples from climatology and hydrologic cycling to illustrate these applications, for instance how to get physically based estimates of evaporation, assessments of how hydrologic cycling responds to global climate change, or how extreme weather events will change with global warming. The workshop aims to conclude with a brainstorming session on potential future applications, emphasizing the broad applicability of the approach, given that energy, its conversions, and interactions form the core of virtually every Earth, water, climate, and urban system process.
Outreach Seminar Hall, IIT Kanpur
Applicants pursuing Postgraduate (PG)/ PhD /Early career researchers/ Industry professionals in the relevant engineering and science disciplines from Indian Institutes/Colleges/Universities can apply
We invite all interested participants to apply for the 3-day workshop from 9th to 11th March by completing the Google Form by 31st January 2026.