Related papers: Climate and ocean circulation changes toward a mod…

This thesis assesses the influence of astronomical phenomena on the Earth's biosphere and climate. I examine in particular the relevance of both the path of the Sun through the Galaxy and the evolution of the Earth's orbital parameters in…

We build a conceptual coupled model of the climate and tidal evolution of the Earth-Moon system to find the influence of the former on the latter. An energy balance model is applied to calculate steady-state temperature field from the mean…

The glaciological record of atmospheric composition suggests O2 has declined over the last 800000 years at an average rate of 0.3 x 1012 mol (Tmol) O2 yr-1. Because the geological carbon cycle regulates long term atmospheric oxygen…

We present an extensive thermodynamic analysis of a hysteresis experiment performed on a simplified yet Earth-like climate model. We slowly vary the solar constant by 20% around the present value and detect a substantial bistability: for a…

Magmatism and volcanism transfer carbon from the solid Earth into the climate system. This transfer may be modulated by the glacial/interglacial cycling of water between oceans and continental ice sheets, which alters the surface loading of…

Complex ocean systems such as the Antarctic Circumpolar Current play key roles in the climate, and current models predict shifts in their strength and area under climate change. However, the physical processes underlying these changes are…

The current configuration of the ocean overturning involves upwelling predominantly in the Southern Ocean and sinking predominantly in the Atlantic basin. The reasons for this remain unclear, as both models and paleoclimatic observations…

Ocean worlds are prevalent in the solar system. Focusing on Enceladus, Titan, Europa, and Ganymede, I use rotating convection theory and numerical simulations to predict ocean currents and the potential for ice-ocean coupling. When the…

The global ocean overturning circulation, critically dependent on the global density stratification, plays a central role in regulating climate evolution. While it is well-known that the global stratification profile exhibits a strong…

Clouds on Titan result from the condensation of methane and ethane and, as on other planets, are primarily structured by circulation of the atmosphere. At present, cloud activity mainly occurs in the southern (summer) hemisphere, arising…

The mean surface temperature on Earth and other planets with atmospheres is determined by the radiative balance between the non-reflected incoming solar radiation and the outgoing long-wave black-body radiation from the atmosphere. The…

Changes that occur on our planet can be tracked back to one of two energy sources: the sun and the Earth's internal energy. The motion of tectonic plates, volcanism, mountain building and the reshaping of our planet's surface over geologic…

While it is expected that the large-scale tropical circulation should undergo some changes in a warmer climate, it remains an open question whether its characteristic features, such as the Hadley cell, the intertropical convergence zone, or…

Ice sintering is a form of metamorphism that drives the microstructural evolution of an aggregate of grains through surface and volume diffusion. This leads to an increase in the grain-to-grain contact area ("neck") and density of the…

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…

The nature of the early Martian climate is one of the major unanswered questions of planetary science. Key challenges remain, but a new wave of orbital and in situ observations and improvements in climate modeling have led to significant…

Observations indicate that the Arctic sea ice cover is rapidly retreating while the Antarctic sea ice cover is steadily expanding. State-of-the-art climate models, by contrast, typically simulate a moderate decrease in both the Arctic and…

Studies on Sun-climate connection have been carried out for several decades, and almost all of them focused on the effects of solar total irradiation energy. As the second major terrestrial energy source from outer space, the solar wind…

Enceladus is believed to have a saltwater global ocean with a mean depth of at least 30~km, heated from below at the ocean-core interface and cooled at the top, where the ocean loses heat to the icy lithosphere above. This scenario suggests…

The early Earth's environment is controversial. Climatic estimates range from hot to glacial, and inferred marine pH spans strongly alkaline to acidic. Better understanding of early climate and ocean chemistry would improve our knowledge of…