Related papers: Climate instability on tidally locked exoplanets
The orbital regime of a terrestrial planet plays a significant role in shaping its atmospheric dynamics, climate, and hence potential habitability. The orbit is also likely to play a role in shaping the response of a planetary atmosphere to…
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,…
It is likely that unambiguous habitable zone terrestrial planets of unknown water content will soon be discovered. Water content helps determine surface land fraction, which influences planetary weathering behavior. This is important…
Short period exoplanets on circular orbits are thought to be tidally locked into synchronous rotation. If tidally locked, these planets must possess permanent day- and nightsides, with extreme irradiation on the dayside and none on the…
Small rocky planets, as well as larger planets that suffered extensive volatile loss, tend to be drier and have thinner atmospheres as compared to Earth. Such planets probably outnumber worlds better endowed with volatiles, being the most…
As a contribution to the study of the habitability of extrasolar planets, we implemented a 1-D Energy Balance Model (EBM), the simplest seasonal model of planetary climate, with new prescriptions for most physical quantities. Here we apply…
Liquid water is one of the most important materials affecting the climate and habitability of a terrestrial planet. Liquid water vaporizes entirely when planets receive insolation above a certain value, which is called the runaway…
TRAPPIST-1 planets are invaluable for the study of comparative planetary science outside our Solar System and possibly habitability. First, we derive from N-body simulations possible planetary evolution scenarios, and show that each of the…
The ability of a planet to maintain surface water, key to life as we know it, depends on solar and planetary energy. As a star ages, it delivers more energy to a planet. As a planet ages it produces less internal heat, which leads to…
Thermal tides are atmospheric tides caused by variations in day-night insolation, similar to gravitational tides but with key differences. While both result in delayed mass redistribution, energy dissipation, and angular momentum exchanges…
Planets residing in circumstellar habitable zones (CHZs) offer our best opportunities to test hypotheses of life's potential pervasiveness and complexity. Constraining the precise boundaries of habitability and its observational…
Planetary atmospheric energy budgets primarily depend on stellar incident flux. However, stellar variability can have major consequences for the evolution of planetary climates. In this work, we evaluate how stellar variability influences…
Discoveries of extrasolar planets in the habitable zone (HZ) of their parent star lead to questions about the habitability of massive moons orbiting planets in the HZ. Around low-mass stars, the HZ is much closer to the star than for…
Observations of time-resolved thermal emission from tidally locked exoplanets can tell us about their atmospheric temperature structure. Telescopes such as JWST and ARIEL will improve the quality and availability of these measurements. This…
Is there oceanic superrotation on exoplanets? Atmospheric superrotation, characterized by west-to-east winds over the equator, is a common phenomenon in the atmospheres of Venus, Titan, Saturn, Jupiter, and tidally locked exoplanets. The…
Ocean planets are volatile rich planets, not present in our Solar System, which are thought to be dominated by deep, global oceans. This results in the formation of high-pressure water ice, separating the planetary crust from the liquid…
Models of thermal evolution, crustal production, and CO$_2$ cycling are used to constrain the prospects for habitability of rocky planets, with Earth-like size and composition, in the stagnant lid regime. Specifically, we determine the…
The ice-albedo feedback on rapidly-rotating terrestrial planets in the habitable zone can lead to abrupt transitions (bifurcations) between a warm and a snowball (ice-covered) state, bistability between these states, and hysteresis in…
Planets with large moon(s) or those in the habitable zone of low-mass stars may experience much stronger tidal force and tide-induced ocean mixing than that on Earth. Thus, the vertical diffusivity (or, more precisely, diapycnal…
I argue that feedback is as important to formation of planets as it is to formation of stars and galaxies. Energy released by massive solid cores puffs up pre-collapse gas giant planets, making them vulnerable to tidal disruptions by their…