The TRAPPIST-1 Habitable Atmosphere Intercomparison (THAI). II. Moist Cases-The Two Waterworlds - INSU - Institut national des sciences de l'Univers Access content directly
Journal Articles The Planetary Science Journal Year : 2022

The TRAPPIST-1 Habitable Atmosphere Intercomparison (THAI). II. Moist Cases-The Two Waterworlds

Denis E. Sergeev
  • Function : Author
Thomas J. Fauchez
  • Function : Author
Ian A. Boutle
  • Function : Author
Kostas Tsigaridis
  • Function : Author
Michael J. Way
  • Function : Author
Eric T. Wolf
  • Function : Author
Shawn D. Domagal-Goldman
  • Function : Author
Jacob Haqq-Misra
  • Function : Author
Ravi K. Kopparapu
  • Function : Author
F. Hugo Lambert
  • Function : Author
James Manners
  • Function : Author
Nathan J. Mayne
  • Function : Author

Abstract

To identify promising exoplanets for atmospheric characterization and to make the best use of observational data, a thorough understanding of their atmospheres is needed. Three-dimensional general circulation models (GCMs) are one of the most comprehensive tools available for this task and will be used to interpret observations of temperate rocky exoplanets. Due to parameterization choices made in GCMs, they can produce different results, even for the same planet. Employing four widely used exoplanetary GCMs-ExoCAM, LMD-G, ROCKE-3D, and the UM-we continue the TRAPPIST-1 Habitable Atmosphere Intercomparison by modeling aquaplanet climates of TRAPPIST-1e with a moist atmosphere dominated by either nitrogen or carbon dioxide. Although the GCMs disagree on the details of the simulated regimes, they all predict a temperate climate with neither of the two cases pushed out of the habitable state. Nevertheless, the intermodel spread in the global mean surface temperature is nonnegligible: 14 K and 24 K in the nitrogen- and carbon dioxide-dominated case, respectively. We find substantial intermodel differences in moist variables, with the smallest amount of clouds in LMD-Generic and the largest in ROCKE-3D. ExoCAM predicts the warmest climate for both cases and thus has the highest water vapor content and the largest amount and variability of cloud condensate. The UM tends to produce colder conditions, especially in the nitrogen-dominated case due to a strong negative cloud radiative effect on the day side of TRAPPIST-1e. Our study highlights various biases of GCMs and emphasizes the importance of not relying solely on one model to understand exoplanet climates.
Fichier principal
Vignette du fichier
Sergeev_2022_Planet._Sci._J._3_212.pdf (4.09 Mo) Télécharger le fichier
Origin : Publisher files allowed on an open archive

Dates and versions

insu-03847093 , version 1 (10-11-2022)

Licence

Attribution

Identifiers

Cite

Denis E. Sergeev, Thomas J. Fauchez, Martin Turbet, Ian A. Boutle, Kostas Tsigaridis, et al.. The TRAPPIST-1 Habitable Atmosphere Intercomparison (THAI). II. Moist Cases-The Two Waterworlds. The Planetary Science Journal, 2022, 3, ⟨10.3847/PSJ/ac6cf2⟩. ⟨insu-03847093⟩
35 View
22 Download

Altmetric

Share

Gmail Facebook X LinkedIn More