Albedos, Equilibrium Temperatures, and Surface Temperatures of Habitable Planets
Abstract
The potential habitability of known exoplanets is often categorized by a nominal equilibrium temperature assuming a Bond albedo of either 0.3, similar to Earth, or 0. As an indicator of habitability, this leaves much to be desired, because albedo on other planets can be very different, and because surface temperature exceeds equilibrium temperature due to the atmospheric greenhouse effect. We use an ensemble of 3-dimensional general circulation model simulations to show that for a range of habitable planets, much of the variability of Bond albedo, equilibrium temperature, and even surface temperature can be predicted with useful accuracy from incident stellar flux and stellar temperature, two known external parameters for every confirmed exoplanet.
Keywords
Cite
@article{arxiv.1812.06606,
title = {Albedos, Equilibrium Temperatures, and Surface Temperatures of Habitable Planets},
author = {Anthony D. Del Genio and Nancy Y. Kiang and Michael J. Way and David S. Amundsen and Linda E. Sohl and Yuka Fujii and Mark Chandler and Igor Aleinov and Christopher M. Colose and Scott D. Guzewich and Maxwell Kelley},
journal= {arXiv preprint arXiv:1812.06606},
year = {2019}
}
Comments
45 pages including 8 figures, 5 tables; submitted to The Astrophysical Journal