Related papers: Increased insolation threshold for runaway greenho…
We show that collision-induced absorption allows molecular hydrogen to act as an incondensible greenhouse gas, and that bars or tens of bars of primordial H2-He mixtures can maintain surface temperatures above the freezing point of water…
Although non-greenhouse gases can vary substantially in abundance in Earth-like atmospheres, their climatic influences remain insufficiently understood. To investigate how such gases regulate climate, we vary the abundance of N$_2$ as a…
Temperature-dependent biological productivity controls silicate weathering and thereby extends the potential habitable timespan of Earth. Models and theoretical considerations indicate that the runaway greenhouse on Earth-like exoplanets is…
Increases in atmospheric CO2 and CH4 result from a combination of forcing from anthropogenic emissions and Earth System feedbacks that reduce or amplify the effects of those emissions on atmospheric concentrations. Despite decades of…
Water photolysis and hydrogen loss from the upper atmospheres of terrestrial planets is of fundamental importance to climate evolution but remains poorly understood in general. Here we present a range of calculations we performed to study…
All water-covered rocky planets in the inner habitable zones of solar-type stars will inevitably experience a catastrophic runaway climate due to increasing stellar luminosity and limits to outgoing infrared radiation from wet greenhouse…
Conventionally, a habitable planet is one that can support liquid water on its surface. Habitability depends on temperature, which is set by insolation and the greenhouse effect, due mainly to CO2 and water vapor. The CO2 level is increased…
The carbon-silicate cycle regulates the atmospheric $CO_2$ content of terrestrial planets on geological timescales through a balance between the rates of $CO_2$ volcanic outgassing and planetary intake from rock weathering. It is thought to…
It is widely believed that the carbonate-silicate cycle is the main agent to trigger deglaciations by CO$_2$ greenhouse warming on Earth and on Earth-like planets when they get in frozen state. Here we use a 3D Global Climate Model to…
The habitable zone (HZ) is the circumstellar region where a planet can sustain surface liquid water. Searching for terrestrial planets in the HZ of nearby stars is the stated goal of ongoing and planned extrasolar planet surveys. Previous…
Atmospheric escape is an important process that influences the evolution of planetary atmospheres. A variety of physical mechanisms can contribute to escape from an atmosphere, including thermal escape, ion escape, photochemical escape, and…
The recent discoveries of terrestrial exoplanets and super-Earths extending over a broad range of orbital and physical parameters suggest that these planets will span a wide range of climatic regimes. Characterization of the atmospheres of…
We present a three-species multi-fluid MHD model (H$^+$, H$_2$O$^+$ and e$^-$), endowed with the requisite atmospheric chemistry, that is capable of accurately quantifying the magnitude of water ion losses from exoplanets. We apply this…
Evaporation rates from porous evaporators under sunlight have been reported to exceed the solar-thermal limit, determined by relating the incoming solar energy to the latent and sensible heat of water, for applications in desalination and…
Identifying Earth-like planets outside out solar system is a leading research goal in astronomy, but determining if candidate planets have atmospheres, and more importantly if they can retain atmospheres, is still out of reach. In this…
Climate change is a result of a complex system of interactions of greenhouse gases (GHG), the ocean, land, ice, and clouds. Large climate change models use several computers and solve several equations to predict the future climate. The…
Absorption of high-energy radiation in planetary thermospheres is believed to lead to the formation of planetary winds. The resulting mass-loss rates can affect the evolution, particularly of small gas planets. We present 1D, spherically…
The Kepler space telescope has detected transits of objects as small as the Earth's Moon, and moons as small as 0.2 Earth masses can be detected in the Kepler data by transit timing and transit duration variations of their host planets.…
A planet's climate can be strongly affected by its orbital eccentricity and obliquity. Here we use a 1-dimensional energy balance model modified to include a simple runaway greenhouse (RGH) parameterization to explore the effects of these…
About 2.5 billion years ago, microbes learned to harness plentiful solar energy to reduce CO$_2$ with H$_2$O, extracting energy and producing O$_2$ as waste. O$_2$ production from this metabolic process was so vigorous that it saturated its…