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Circulation Patterns, Climate Moist Bistability, and Habitability 3D climate modeling of close-in land planets: Circulation patterns, climate moist bistability, and habitability The Harvard community has made this article openly available. Please share how this access benefits you. Your story matters Citation Leconte, J., F. Forget, B. Charnay, R. Wordsworth, F. Selsis, E. Millour, and A. Spiga. 2013. “3D Climate Modeling of Close-in Land Planets: Circulation Patterns, Climate Moist Bistability, and Habitability.” Astronomy & Astrophysics 554 (June): A69. doi:10.1051/0004-6361/201321042. http:// dx.doi.org/10.1051/0004-6361/201321042. Published Version doi:10.1051/0004-6361/201321042 Citable link http://nrs.harvard.edu/urn-3:HUL.InstRepos:27846337 Terms of Use This article was downloaded from Harvard University’s DASH repository, and is made available under the terms and conditions applicable to Open Access Policy Articles, as set forth at http:// nrs.harvard.edu/urn-3:HUL.InstRepos:dash.current.terms-of- use#OAP Astronomy & Astrophysics manuscript no. gliese_v5 c ESO 2013 March 29, 2013 3D climate modeling of close-in land planets: Circulation patterns, climate moist bistability and habitability Jérémy Leconte1, Francois Forget1, Benjamin Charnay1, Robin Wordsworth2, Franck Selsis3; 4, and Ehouarn Millour1 1 LMD, Institut Pierre-Simon Laplace, Université P. et M. Curie, BP99, 75005, Paris, France e-mail: [email protected] 2 Department of Geological Sciences, University of Chicago, 5734 S Ellis Avenue, Chicago, IL 60622, USA 3 Université de Bordeaux, Observatoire Aquitain des Sciences de l’Univers, BP 89, 33271 Floirac Cedex, France 4 CNRS, UMR 5804, Laboratoire d’Astrophysique de Bordeaux, BP 89, 33271 Floirac Cedex, France Accepted 27 March 2013 ABSTRACT The inner edge of the classical habitable zone is often defined by the critical flux needed to trigger the runaway greenhouse instability. This 1D notion of a critical flux, however, may not be so relevant for inhomogeneously irradiated planets, or when the water content is limited (land planets). Here, based on results from our 3D global climate model, we present general features of the climate and large scale circulation on close-in terrestrial planets. We find that the circulation pattern can shift from super-rotation to stellar/anti stellar circulation when the equatorial Rossby deformation radius significantly exceeds the planetary radius, changing the redistribution properties of the atmosphere. Using analytical and numerical arguments, we also demonstrate the presence of systematic biases between mean surface temperatures or temperature profiles predicted from either 1D or 3D simulations. Including a complete modeling of the water cycle, we further demonstrate that for land planets closer than the inner edge of the classical habitable zone, two stable climate regimes can exist. One is the classical runaway state where all the water is vaporized, and the other is a collapsed state where water is captured in permanent cold traps. We identify this "moist" bistability as the result of a competition between the greenhouse effect of water vapor and its condensation on the night side or near the poles, highlighting the dynamical nature of the runaway greenhouse effect. We also present synthetic spectra showing the observable signature of these two states. Taking the example of two prototype planets in this regime, namely Gl 581 c and HD 85512 b, we argue that depending on the rate of water delivery and atmospheric escape during the life of these planets, they could accumulate a significant amount of water ice at their surface. If such a thick ice cap is present, various physical mechanisms observed on Earth (e.g. gravity driven ice flows, geothermal flux) should come into play to produce long-lived liquid water at the edge and/or bottom of the ice cap. Consequently, the habitability of planets at smaller orbital distance than the inner edge of the classical habitable zone cannot be ruled out. Transiting planets in this regime represent promising targets for upcoming exoplanet characterization observatories like EChO and JWST. Key words. Exoplanet atmospheres, Atmospheric dynamics, Climate bistability, Synchronous planets 1. Beyond the runaway greenhouse limit equilibrium balance and is heated until the surface can radiate at optical wavelength around a temperature of 1400K (Kasting Because of the bias of planet characterization observatories to- et al. 1984; Kasting 1988). All the water at the surface is va- ward strongly irradiated objects on short orbits, planets identified porized. The planet is in a runaway greenhouse state. Roughly to be near the inner edge of the habitable zone represent valuable speaking, this radiation limit stems from the fact that the surface targets. This however raises numerous questions concerning our must increase its temperature to radiate more, but the amount of understanding of the processes delimiting this inner edge. water vapor in the troposphere, and thus the opacity of the latter, For a planet like the Earth, which from the point of view of 1 increases exponentially with this surface temperature (because climate can be considered as an aqua planet , a key constraint of the Clausius-Clapeyron relation). Then the thermal emission arXiv:1303.7079v1 [astro-ph.EP] 28 Mar 2013 is provided by the positive feedback of water vapor on climate. of the opaque atmosphere is emitted at the level at which the op- When the insolation of the planet is increased, more water vapor tical depth is close to unity, a level whose temperature reaches an is released in the atmosphere by the hotter surface, increasing asymptotic value, hence the limited flux2 (Nakajima et al. 1992; the greenhouse effect. If on Earth today this effect is balanced Pierrehumbert 2010). by other processes, in particular the increase of infrared emission While large uncertainties remain regarding the radiative by the surface with temperature, it has been shown that above a effect of water vapor continuum and the nonlinear, three- critical absorbed stellar flux, the planet cannot reach radiative dimensional effect of dynamics and clouds, the critical value of Send offprint requests to: J. Leconte 1 i.e. a planet whose surface is largely covered by connected oceans 2 A similar but slightly subtler limit stems from considering the radia- that have a planet-wide impact on the climate. Not to be confused with tive/thermodynamic equilibrium of the stratosphere (Kombayashi 1967; an ocean planet for which, in addition, water must represent a significant Ingersoll 1969; Nakajima et al. 1992), but it is less constraining in the fraction of the bulk mass (Léger et al. 2004). case considered. Article number, page 1 of 18 the average absorbed stellar radiation, (1 − A¯)F?=4 (where F? planets. We will show that qualitatively robust features appear is the stellar flux at the substellar point and A¯ is the planetary in our simulations, and argue that the processes governing the bond albedo), should conservatively range between 240 W/m2 climate discussed here are quite general. (the mean absorbed stellar radiation on Earth) and 350 W/m2 In Sect.2 we introduce the various components of our nu- (Abe et al. 2011). Terrestrial planets emitting such (low) IR merical climate model and we present the basic climatology of fluxes will be difficult to characterize in the near future. our model in a completely dry case (Sect.3). We show that the Fortunately, the runaway greenhouse limit discussed above atmospheric circulation can settle into two different regimes - is not as fundamental as it may appear. Indeed, the theory out- namely super-rotation or stellar/anti-stellar circulation - and that lined above assumes that a sufficient3 reservoir of liquid water is the transition of one regime to the other occurs when the equa- available everywhere on the surface (Selsis et al. 2007). While torial Rossby deformation radius significantly exceeds the plan- it would seem from 1D modeling that liquid water would disap- etary radius. We also show that strong discrepancies can occur pear at a lower surface temperature for a planet with a limited between 1D and globally averaged 3D results. Then we show water inventory, it goes the opposite way in 3D. Global climate that when water is present, the climate regime reached depends models show that such "land planets" can have a wider habitable on the initial conditions and can exhibit a bistability (Sect.4). zone (Abe et al. 2011). Near the inner edge, this property stems We argue that this bistability is a dynamical manifestation of the from the fact that atmospheric transport of water from warm to interplay between the runaway greenhouse instability on the hot cold regions of the planets is not counteracted by large-scale sur- hemisphere and the cold trapping arising either on the dark side face runoff (Abe et al. 2005). Heavily irradiated regions are then or near the poles. In Sect.5, we discuss the long-term stability drier and can emit more IR flux than the limit found for a satu- of the different regimes found here and show that, if atmospheric rated atmosphere. escape is efficient, it could provide a stabilizing feedback for the In principle, it is thus possible to find planets absorbing and climate. In Sect.6, we suggest that if the planet has been able to re-emitting more flux than the runaway greenhouse threshold accumulate a large amount of ice in its cold traps such that ice and for which liquid/solid water can be thermodynamically sta- draining by glaciers is significant, liquid water could be present ble at the surface, provided that they accreted limited water sup- at the edge of the ice cap where glaciers melt. We also dis- plies (or lost most of them). As will be shown hereafter, this cuss the possible presence of subsurface water under a thick ice could be the case for Gl 581 c (Udry et al.
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