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Because the solar luminosity increases over geological timescales, Earth climate is expected to warm, increasing water evaporation which, in turn, enhances the atmospheric greenhouse effect. Above a certain critical insolation, this…
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.…
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 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…
According to the standard liquid-water definition, the Earth is only partially habitable. We reconsider planetary habitability in the framework of energy-balance models, the simplest seasonal models in physical climatology, to assess the…
Earth-like planets in the habitable zone of low-mass stars undergo strong tidal effects that modify their spin states. These planets are expected to host dense atmospheres that can also play an important role in the spin evolution. On one…
Cold super-Earths which retain their primordial, H-He dominated atmosphere could have surfaces that are warm enough to host liquid water. This would be due to the collision induced absorption (CIA) of infra-red light by hydrogen, which…
We recommend an intensive effort to survey and understand the obliquity distribution of small close-in extrasolar planets over the coming decade. The orbital obliquities of exoplanets--i.e., the relative orientation between the planetary…
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…
Terrestrial planets in the Habitable Zone of Sun-like stars are priority targets for detection and observation by the next generation of space telescopes. Earth's long-term habitability may have been tied to the geological carbon cycle, a…
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…
No matter how fascinating and exotic other terrestrial planets are revealed to be, nothing generates more excitement than announcements regarding their habitability. From the observation of Mars to present-day efforts toward Venus and the…
Atmospheric ozone plays an important role on the temperature structure of the atmosphere. However, it has not been included in previous studies on the effect of an increasing solar radiation on the Earth's climate. Here we study the climate…
Rocky planets hosted by close-in extrasolar systems are likely to be tidally locked in 1:1 spin-orbit resonance, a configuration where they exhibit permanent dayside and nightside. Because of the resulting day-night temperature gradient,…
Impacts by rocky and icy bodies are thought to have played a key role in shaping the composition of solar system objects, including the Earth's habitability. Hence, it is likely that they play a similar role in exoplanetary systems. We…
Ocean salinity is known to dramatically affect the climates of Earth-like planets orbiting Sun-like stars, with high salinity leading to less ice and higher surface temperature. However, how ocean composition impacts climate under different…
It is well known that planets with radii between that of Earth and Neptune have been the most commonly detected to-date. To classify these planets as either terrestrial or gaseous, typically we turn to mass-radius relations and composition…
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…
Molecular oxygen (O2) will be an important molecule in the search for biosignatures in terrestrial planetary atmospheres in the coming decades. In particular, O2 combined with a reducing gas is thought to be strong evidence for…
Ocean mesoscale eddies can be thought of as the "weather" of the ocean and strongly influence the ocean's physics, chemistry, and biology; they influence other components of the Earth system via air-sea and sea-ice interactions, and are…