Traveling planetary-scale waves cause cloud variability on tidally locked aquaplanets
dc.contributor.author | Cohen, M | |
dc.contributor.author | Bollasina, MA | |
dc.contributor.author | Sergeev, DE | |
dc.contributor.author | Palmer, PI | |
dc.contributor.author | Mayne, NJ | |
dc.date.accessioned | 2023-04-03T12:48:01Z | |
dc.date.issued | 2023-04-21 | |
dc.date.updated | 2023-04-03T10:38:31Z | |
dc.description.abstract | Cloud cover at the planetary limb of water-rich Earth-like planets is likely to weaken chemical signatures in transmission spectra, impeding attempts to characterize these atmospheres. However, based on observations of Earth and solar system worlds, exoplanets with atmospheres should have both short-term weather and long-term climate variability, implying that cloud cover may be less during some observing periods. We identify and describe a mechanism driving periodic clear sky events at the terminators in simulations of tidally locked Earth-like planets. A feedback between dayside cloud radiative effects, incoming stellar radiation and heating, and the dynamical state of the atmosphere, especially the zonal wavenumber-1 Rossby wave identified in past work on tidally locked planets, leads to oscillations in Rossby wave phase speeds and in the position of Rossby gyres and results in advection of clouds to or away from the planet’s eastern terminator. We study this oscillation in simulations of Proxima Centauri b, TRAPPIST 1-e, and rapidly rotating versions of these worlds located at the inner edge of their stars’ habitable zones. We simulate time series of the transit depths of the 1.4 µm water feature and 2.7 µm carbon dioxide feature. The impact of atmospheric variability on the transmission spectra is sensitive to the structure of the dayside cloud cover and the location of the Rossby gyres, but none of our simulations have variability significant enough to be detectable with current methods. | en_GB |
dc.description.sponsorship | Edinburgh Earth, Ecology, and Environmental Doctoral Training Partnership | en_GB |
dc.description.sponsorship | Natural Environment Research Council (NERC) | en_GB |
dc.description.sponsorship | UKRI | en_GB |
dc.description.sponsorship | Science and Technology Facilities Council (STFC) | en_GB |
dc.description.sponsorship | Leverhulme Trust | en_GB |
dc.identifier.citation | Vol. 4 (4), article 68 | en_GB |
dc.identifier.doi | 10.3847/PSJ/acc9c4 | |
dc.identifier.grantnumber | NE/S007407/1 | en_GB |
dc.identifier.grantnumber | MR/T040866/1 | en_GB |
dc.identifier.grantnumber | ST/R000395/1 | en_GB |
dc.identifier.grantnumber | RPG-2020-82 | en_GB |
dc.identifier.uri | http://hdl.handle.net/10871/132830 | |
dc.identifier | ORCID: 0000-0001-6707-4563 (Mayne, Nathan) | |
dc.language.iso | en | en_GB |
dc.publisher | IOP Publishing | en_GB |
dc.relation.url | https://doi.org/10.5281/zenodo.7752337 | en_GB |
dc.relation.url | https://github.com/maureenjcohen/cloudcode | en_GB |
dc.rights | © 2023. The Author(s). Published by the American Astronomical Society Open access. Original content from this work may be used under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 licence. Any further distribution of this work must maintain attribution to the author(s) and the title of the work, journal citation and DOI. | en_GB |
dc.subject | exoplanets | en_GB |
dc.subject | exoplanet atmospheres | en_GB |
dc.title | Traveling planetary-scale waves cause cloud variability on tidally locked aquaplanets | en_GB |
dc.type | Article | en_GB |
dc.date.available | 2023-04-03T12:48:01Z | |
dc.identifier.issn | 2632-3338 | |
dc.description | This is the final version. Available on open access from IOP Publishing via the DOI in this record | en_GB |
dc.description | Data availability: A 200-day sample of model output data from each simulation presented in this study is available for public download at https://doi.org/10.5281/zenodo.7752337. The source code to generate the figures in this study is available at https://github.com/maureenjcohen/cloudcode | en_GB |
dc.identifier.journal | The Planetary Science Journal | en_GB |
dc.rights.uri | https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/ | en_GB |
dcterms.dateAccepted | 2023-03-31 | |
dcterms.dateSubmitted | 2022-11-17 | |
rioxxterms.version | VoR | en_GB |
rioxxterms.licenseref.startdate | 2023-03-31 | |
rioxxterms.type | Journal Article/Review | en_GB |
refterms.dateFCD | 2023-04-03T10:38:33Z | |
refterms.versionFCD | AM | |
refterms.dateFOA | 2023-05-05T14:58:38Z | |
refterms.panel | B | en_GB |
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Except where otherwise noted, this item's licence is described as © 2023. The Author(s). Published by the American Astronomical Society Open access. Original content from this work may be used under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 licence. Any further distribution of this work must maintain attribution to the author(s) and the title of the work, journal citation and DOI.