Related papers: Exploring Climate with Obliquity in a Variable-ecc…
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…
Although the Earth's orbit is never far from circular, terrestrial planets around other stars might experience substantial changes in eccentricity that could lead to climate changes, including possible "phase transitions" such as the…
Planetary obliquity is a first order control on planetary climate and seasonal contrast, which has a number of cascading consequences for life. How moderately high obliquity (obliquities greater than Earth's current obliquity up to…
The long-term habitability of Earth-like planets requires low orbital eccentricities. A secular perturbation from a distant stellar companion is a very important mechanism in exciting planetary eccentricities, as many of the extrasolar…
In coming years, the first truly Earth-like planets will be discovered orbiting other stars, and the search for signs of life on these worlds will begin. However, such observations will be hugely time-consuming and costly, and so it will be…
An Earth-analog orbiting within the habitable zone of $\alpha$ Centauri B was shown to undergo large variations in its obliquity, or axial tilt, which affects the planetary climate by altering the radiative flux for a given latitude. We…
A wealth of Earth-sized exoplanets will be discovered in the coming years, proving a large pool of candidates from which the targets for the search for life beyond the Solar system will be chosen. The target selection process will require…
The discovery of terrestrial exoplanets is uncovering increasingly diverse architectures. Of particular interest are those systems that contain exoplanets at a variety of star-planet separations, allowing direct comparison of exoplanet…
We investigate how obliquity affects stratospheric humidity using a 3D general circulation model and find the stratosphere under high obliquity could be over 3 orders of magnitude moister than under the low obliquity equivalent, even with…
Rotation and orbital eccentricity both strongly influence planetary climate. Eccentricities can often be measured for exoplanets, but rotation rates are currently difficult or impossible to constrain. Here we examine how the combined…
Obliquity variability could play an important role in the climate and habitability of a planet. Orbital modulations caused by planetary companions and the planet's spin axis precession due to the torque from the host star may lead to…
The habitable fraction of a planet's surface is important for the detectability of surface biosignatures. The extent and distribution of habitable areas is influenced by external parameters that control the planet's climate, atmospheric…
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…
We present a large ensemble of simulations of an Earth-like world with increasing insolation and rotation rate. Unlike previous work utilizing idealized aquaplanet configurations we focus our simulations on modern Earth-like topography. The…
From the numerous detected planets outside the Solar system, no terrestrial planet comparable to our Earth has been discovered so far. The search for an Exo-Earth is certainly a big challenge which may require the detections of planetary…
We explore the potential multistability of the climate for a planet around the habitable zone. We focus on conditions reminiscent to those of the Earth system, but our investigation aims at presenting a general methodology for dealing with…
A fundamental question in the study of planetary system demographics is: how common is the solar system architecture? The primary importance of this question lies in the potential of planetary systems to create habitable environments, and…
Planetary climates are strongly affected by planetary orbital parameters such as obliquity, eccentricity, and precession. In exoplanetary systems, exo-terrestrial planets should have various obliquities. High-obliquity planets would have…
The obliquity of a star, or the angle between its spin axis and the average orbit normal of its companion planets, provides a unique constraint on that system's evolutionary history. Unlike the Solar System, where the Sun's equator is…
For a hypothetical planet on a highly eccentric orbit, we have calculated the osculating orbital parameters and its closest approaches to Earth and Moon over a period of 750 kyr. The approaches which are close enough to influence the…