Related papers: The Intertropical Convergence Zone
The climate and circulation of a terrestrial planet are governed by, among other things, the distance to its host star, its size, rotation rate, obliquity, atmospheric composition and gravity. Here we explore the effects of the last of…
The solar wind (SW) is a vital component of space weather, providing a background for solar transients such as coronal mass ejections, stream interaction regions, and energetic particles propagating toward Earth. Accurate prediction of…
Infographics are a form of data visualization combining data, information, and statistics. Over the last ten years, infographics have become a popular method for displaying concise information, where infographics are a useful tool for…
The Sun provides the main energy input to the terrestrial atmosphere, and yet the impact of solar variability on long-term changes remains a controversial issue. Direct radiative forcing is the most studied mechanism. Other much weaker…
In contrast to the Earth, where frictional heating is typically negligible, we show that drag mechanisms could act as an important heat source in the strongly-forced atmospheres of some exoplanets, with the potential to alter the…
Changes in the atmospheric composition alter the magnitude and partitioning between the downward propagating solar and atmospheric longwave radiative fluxes heating the Earth's surface. These changes are computed by radiative transfer codes…
The energy balance for an atmospheric layer near the soil is evaluated. By integrating it over the whole day period a linear relationship between the global daily solar radiation incident on a horizontal surface and the product of the…
The brightness of the emission from coronal loops in the solar atmosphere is strongly dependent on the temperature and density of the confined plasma. After a release of energy, these loops undergo a heating and upflow phase, followed by a…
This chapter provides an overview of the basic concepts foundational to atmospheric physics and chemistry. We discuss the retention of atmospheres against thermal evaporation and the global energy balance of planets. We present simple…
The intensity and energy spectrum of energetic charged radiation in the heliosphere are significantly influenced by solar activity. This phenomenon is known as solar modulation of galactic cosmic rays. As interplanetary travel becomes a…
In this study, we employ and modify the Lorenz energy cycle (LEC) framework as another way to understand the atmospheric circulation on tidally locked terrestrial planets. It well describes the atmospheric general circulation in the…
In many astrophysical systems, mixing between cool and hot temperature gas/plasma through Kelvin-Helmholtz-instability-driven turbulence leads to the formation of an intermediate temperature phase with increased radiative losses that drive…
We present an atmospheric model tailored for the interactive visualization of planetary surfaces. As the exploration of the solar system is progressing with increasingly accurate missions and instruments, the faithful visualization of…
The North Atlantic Ocean circulation, fuelled by winds and surface buoyancy fluxes, carries 1.25 PettaWatts of heat poleward in the subtropics, and helps in regulating global weather and climate patterns. Here, we assess the relative…
We present three-dimensional numerical simulations of the atmospheric dynamics of close-orbiting planets such as HD209458b. Our simulations show that winds of several km/sec and day-night temperature differences reaching 500-1000 K are…
Tidally locked exoplanets likely host global atmospheric circulations with a superrotating equatorial jet, planetary-scale stationary waves and thermally-driven overturning circulation. In this work, we show that each of these features can…
Second part of a didactic sequence of activities on some topics of Astronomy, related mainly with the real shape of the Earth, the gravitational interactions between our planet and other celestial bodies, and the resulting movement of the…
The first step in exploring the properties of dynamical systems like the Earth climate is to identify the different phase space regions where the trajectories asymptotically evolve, called `attractors'. In a given system, multiple…
Many papers and monographs were written about the modeling the Earth climate and its variability. However there is still an obvious need for a module that presents the fundamentals of climate modeling to students at the undergraduate level.…
We use an idealized three-dimensional general circulation model to study condensible-rich atmospheres with an ineffective cold trap on slowly rotating tidally locked terrestrial planets. In particular, we show the climate dynamics in a thin…