Related papers: Modeling the surface temperature of Earth-like pla…
Before about 500 million years ago, most probably our planet experienced temporary snowball conditions, with continental and sea ices covering a large fraction of its surface. This points to a potential bistability of Earth's climate, that…
Rocky planets with temperate conditions provide the best chance for discovering habitable worlds and life outside the Solar System. In the last decades, new instrumental facilities and large observational campaigns have been driven by the…
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…
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…
Energy balance models (EBMs), alongside radiative-convective climate models (RCMs) and global climate models (GCMs), are useful tools for simulating planetary climates. Historically, planetary and exoplanetary EBMs have solely been 1D…
In the outer regions of the habitable zone, the risk of transitioning into a globally frozen "snowball" state poses a threat to the habitability of planets with the capacity to host water-based life. We use a one-dimensional energy balance…
Extrasolar terrestrial planets with the potential to host life might have large obliquities or be subject to strong obliquity variations. We revisit the habitability of oblique planets with an energy balance climate model (EBM) allowing for…
The potential habitability of a terrestrial planet is usually defined by the possible existence of liquid water on its surface. The potential presence of liquid water depends on many factors such as, most importantly, surface temperatures.…
Robustly modeling the inner edge of the habitable zone is essential for determining the most promising potentially habitable exoplanets for atmospheric characterization. Global climate models (GCMs) have become the standard tool for…
Recently discovered exoplanets on close-in orbits should have surface temperatures of 100's to 1000's of K. They are likely tidally locked and synchronously rotating around their parent stars and, if an atmosphere is absent, have surface…
A planet's surface conditions can significantly impact its climate and habitability. In this study, we use the 3D general circulation model ExoPlaSim to systematically vary dayside land cover on a synchronously rotating, temperate rocky…
With recent advances in exoplanet observational techniques enabling the discovery of increasingly smaller planets, a crucial question emerges in the search for habitable planets: how small can a planet be and still maintain an atmosphere?…
In order to understand the climate on terrestrial planets orbiting nearby Sun-like stars, one would like to know their thermal inertia. We use a global climate model to simulate the thermal phase variations of Earth-analogs and test whether…
Robust atmospheric and radiative transfer modeling will be required to properly interpret reflected light and thermal emission spectra of terrestrial exoplanets. This will help break observational degeneracies between the numerous…
We explore the effects of seasonal variability for the climate of Earth-like planets as determined by the two parameters polar obliquity and orbital eccentricity using a general circulation model of intermediate complexity. In the first…
The habitable zone (HZ) describes the range of orbital distances around a star where the existence of liquid water on the surface of an Earth-like planet is in principle possible. While 3D climate studies can calculate the water vapor, ice…
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…
This paper presents a version of the HEXTOR energy balance model that has been configured for the study of habitable terrestrial planets orbiting low-mass stars. The model is validated for rapidly-rotating Earth-like planets using…
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…
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…