WenJun Zhang School of Life Sciences, Sun Yat-sen University, Guangzhou, China Selforganizology ISSN 2410-0080 http://www.iaees.org/publications/journals/selforganizology/online-version.asp 2026 13 3-4 66 103 International Academy of Ecology and Environmental Sciences Hong Kong 21 April 2026 18 May 2026 1 December 2026 global warming ecosystem response non-equilibrium thermodynamics energy fluctuation steady-state transition self-organized criticality ecological phase transition Current understanding of ecosystem responses to global warming remains predominantly anchored in element-process descriptions that focus on species distributions, phenological shifts, and productivity changes. While substantial empirical evidence documents warming-induced alterations across biological scales, existing frameworks exhibit fundamental limitations in explaining and predicting the widespread occurrence of abrupt ecological changes, regime shifts, and irreversible transitions. This paper argues that global warming, at its thermodynamic essence, constitutes a sustained injection of additional energy into the Earth's ecosystems accompanied by amplified energy fluctuations across multiple temporal scales. Ecosystems, as dissipative structures maintained far from thermodynamic equilibrium, respond to this energy perturbation according to principles rooted in non-equilibrium thermodynamics. I propose an ''Ecological Thermodynamic Fluctuation-Phase Transition'' framework that treats the intensity of warming-driven energy fluctuations as the governing control variable determining ecosystem response modalities. The framework advances three core propositions: first, enhanced energy fluctuations compress the attractor basin of the current steady state within an energy landscape, systematically reducing ecological resilience before any visible state change; second, when fluctuation intensity exceeds a critical threshold, the system is driven toward a self-organized critical state wherein any tiny perturbation can trigger cross-basin transitions, manifesting as ecological phase transitions; third, the direction of phase transition is guided by the maximum entropy production principle, with systems tending toward states characterized by faster energy dissipation, more rapid turnover, and structurally simplified configurations with higher entropy production rates. This framework is supported by metabolic scaling theory, statistical physics of critical phenomena, and thermodynamic extremal principles, and is realized through two novel indices: the Energy Sensitivity Index and the Phase Transition Warning Index. The theory provides a first-principles basis for unifying apparently disparate ecological responses to warming and offers a pathway toward predictive ecology grounded in energy and thermodynamics. http://www.iaees.org/publications/journals/selforganizology/articles/2026-13(3-4)/a-self-organized-criticality-based-framework.pdf