Answer:

Earth is hot and space is cold and the first law of thermodynamics tells us that heat must flow from the former to the latter until they are the same temperature. The Earth is far from being just a boring hot rock however and has spontaneously developed some pretty impressive ways of transferring this heat up from its depths. Earthquakes, volcanoes, tsunamis, hurricanes and the Earth’s magnetic field are all consequences of our planet trying to lose heat as fast at it can and converting (temporarily) some of this thermal energy into mechanical energy as it does so.

Explanation:

At the heart of thermodynamics lies the concept of the heat engine: a system that converts thermal energy into useful work (mechanical energy). The idea was formulated from considerations of man-made steam engines increasingly brought into service during the industrial revolution. Nevertheless, the pioneers of thermodynamics were also doing a great service to the Earth Sciences because heat engines are actually at work all over and inside of our planet.

The two biggest engines in the Earth’s interior are in the mantle and outer core. Both regions are undergoing vigorous convection – that is they are transferring heat by mass movement (due to buoyancy) of hot and cold bits – though at very different rates. The creeping of the continents and oceans at rates of centimetres per year, and the resulting earthquakes that ensue, are down to convection in the mantle. Simply, the crust and top of the mantle loses heat to the adjacent oceans and atmosphere, becomes dense, and sinks at subduction zones. This pulls open a gap at the surface allowing the hotter mantle down below to rise at volcanic mid-ocean ridges. This process of mantle convection via plate tectonics is an extraordinarily effective means of transferring the Earth’s heat that is both much faster and far more interesting than simple conduction. It is not our planet’s only great and beautiful internal heat engine however.

The Earth’s liquid core is a lot hotter than the solid mantle above it and so, once more, heat must flow upwards and outwards.