Related papers: Generalized Milankovitch Cycles and Longterm Clima…
A wealth of Earth-sized exoplanets will be discovered in the coming years, proving a large pool of candidates from which the targets for the search for life beyond the Solar system will be chosen. The target selection process will require…
The inner edge of the classical habitable zone is often defined by the critical flux needed to trigger the runaway greenhouse instability. This 1D notion of a critical flux, however, may not be so relevant for inhomogeneously irradiated…
Carbonate-silicate weathering feedback is thought to stabilize Earth's climate on geologic timescales. If climate warms, faster mineral dissolution and increased rainfall speed up weathering, increasing CO2 drawdown and opposing the initial…
Long-term changes in the tilt of the Earths axis, relative to the plane of its orbit, are of great significance to long-term climate change, because they control the size of the arctic and antarctic circles. These Milankovitch cycles have…
Habitable planets are commonly imagined to be temperate planets like Earth, with areas of open ocean and warm land. In contrast, planets in snowball states, where oceans are entirely ice-covered, are believed to be inhospitable. However, we…
There exists a positive correlation between orbital eccentricity and the average stellar flux that planets receive from their parent star. Often, though, it is assumed that the average equilibrium temperature would correspondingly increase…
The architecture of a planetary system can influence the habitability of a planet via orbital effects, particularly in the areas of stability and eccentricity. Some of these effects are readily apparent, particularly when they occur on…
Understanding the concept of habitability is related to an evolutionary knowledge of the particular planet-in-question. Additional indications so-called "systemic aspects" of the planetary system as a whole governs a particular planet's…
Conventional definitions of habitability require abundant liquid surface water to exist continuously over geologic timescales. Water in each of its thermodynamic phases interacts with solar and thermal radiation and is the cause for strong…
Climate modeling has shown that tidally influenced terrestrial exoplanets, particularly those orbiting M-dwarfs, have unique atmospheric dynamics and surface conditions that may enhance their likelihood to host viable habitats. However,…
In most extrasolar planetary systems, the present orbits of known giant planets admit the existence of stable terrestrial planets. Those same giant planets, however, have typically eccentric orbits that hint at violent early dynamics less…
Earth went through at least two periods of global glaciation (i.e., ``Snowball Earth'' states) during the Neoproterozoic, the shortest of which (the Marinoan) may not have lasted sufficiently long for its termination to be explained by the…
As the number of detected rocky extrasolar planets increases, the question of whether their surfaces could be habitable is becoming more pertinent. On Earth, the long-term carbonate silicate cycle is able to regulate surface temperatures…
The stability of Earth's climate on geological timescales is enabled by the carbon-silicate cycle that acts as a negative feedback mechanism stabilizing surface temperatures via the intake and outgas of atmospheric carbon. On Earth, this…
A simple phenomenological account for planetary climate instabilities is presented. The description is based on the standard model where the balance of incoming stellar radiation and outward thermal radiation is described by the effective…
Distant planets in globally ice-covered, "snowball", states may depend on increases in their host stars' luminosity to become hospitable for surface life. Using a General Circulation Model (GCM), we simulated the equilibrium climate…
High obliquity planets represent potentially extreme limits of terrestrial climate, as they exhibit large seasonality, a reversed annual-mean pole-to-equator gradient of stellar heating, and novel cryospheres. A suite of 3-D global climate…
Planets that revolve around a binary pair of stars are known as circumbinary planets. The orbital motion of the stars around their center of mass causes a periodic variation in the total instellation incident upon a circumbinary planet.…
The TRAPPIST-1, Proxima Centauri, and LHS 1140 systems are the most exciting prospects for future follow-up observations of potentially inhabited planets. All orbit nearby M-stars and are likely tidally locked in 1:1 spin-orbit states,…
Many observed giant planets lie on eccentric orbits. Such orbits could be the result of strong scatterings with other giant planets. The same dynamical instability that produces these scatterings may also cause habitable planets in interior…