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The Rotational and Divergent Components of Atmospheric Circulation on Tidally Locked Planets

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The Rotational and Divergent Components of Atmospheric Circulation on Tidally Locked Planets The rotational and divergent components of atmospheric circulation on tidally locked planets Mark Hammonda,1 and Neil T. Lewisb,1,2 aDepartment of the Geophysical Sciences, University of Chicago, Chicago, IL 60637; and bAtmospheric, Oceanic and Planetary Physics, Clarendon Laboratory, University of Oxford, OX1 3PU Oxford, United Kingdom Edited by Neta A. Bahcall, Princeton University, Princeton, NJ, and approved February 18, 2021 (received for review October 30, 2020) Tidally locked exoplanets likely host global atmospheric circula- Previous work has shown that the circulation on tidally locked tions with a superrotating equatorial jet, planetary-scale station- planets is driven by the strong heating/cooling gradient between ary waves, and thermally driven overturning circulation. In this their day sides and night sides (16–19). The day–night forcing work, we show that each of these features can be separated generates overturning circulation, which features air rising on the from the total circulation by using a Helmholtz decomposition, day side and sinking on the night side (16). This vertical motion which splits the circulation into rotational (divergence-free) and then leads to the generation of stationary waves (20, 21), which divergent (vorticity-free) components. This technique is applied in turn can accelerate a prograde (superrotating) equatorial jet to the simulated circulation of a terrestrial planet and a gaseous (21–24). However, the relative contribution of each of these com- hot Jupiter. For both planets, the rotational component comprises ponents to the total circulation is poorly understood, as no study the equatorial jet and stationary waves, and the divergent com- has shown how they can be isolated from one another. ponent contains the overturning circulation. Separating out each In this study we address this issue by showing how the component allows us to evaluate their spatial structure and rela- overturning circulation, stationary waves, and superrotating tive contribution to the total flow. In contrast with previous work, jet can be separated out from the total circulation using a we show that divergent velocities are not negligible when com- Helmholtz decomposition, which uniquely divides the total circu- pared with rotational velocities and that divergent, overturning lation u = (u, v) into divergent (“vorticity-free”) and rotational circulation takes the form of a single, roughly isotropic cell that (“divergence-free”) components (25): ascends on the day side and descends on the night side. These conclusions are drawn for both the terrestrial case and the hot u = ud + ur [1] EARTH, ATMOSPHERIC, AND PLANETARY SCIENCES Jupiter. To illustrate the utility of the Helmholtz decomposition = −∇χ + k × r : [2] for studying atmospheric processes, we compute the contribu- tion of each of the circulation components to heat transport from Above, χ is the velocity potential function, and is a stream- day side to night side. Surprisingly, we find that the divergent function. χ and are obtained from circulation dominates day–night heat transport in the terrestrial 2 case and accounts for around half of the heat transport for the r χ = δ [3] hot Jupiter. The relative contributions of the rotational and diver- r2 = ζ, [4] gent components to day–night heat transport are likely sensitive to multiple planetary parameters and atmospheric processes and where δ is the divergence and ζ is the vorticity. We apply the merit further study. Helmholtz decomposition to the horizontal velocity fields out- put from two well-studied general circulation model (GCM) exoplanets j atmospheric circulation j Helmholtz decomposition Significance xoplanets, which are planets orbiting stars other than the ESun, have revealed a variety of novel forms of atmospheric Tidally locked exoplanets have a permanent day side and circulation. The most notable of these is the circulation of tidally night side. Understanding the atmospheric circulation on locked planets, which are close enough to their host star that these planets is crucial for interpreting telescope observations tidal stresses between planet and star cause the planet’s orbital and assessing their habitability. We show that the main com- and rotational periods to synchronize (1, 2). These planets always ponents of the circulation—a jet going around the planet, present the same side to their star, yielding a permanent day side stationary atmospheric waves, and direct flow from the day and night side. side to the night side—can be separated using a simple math- Understanding the global circulation of tidally locked plan- ematical decomposition. This decomposition will significantly ets is vital to interpreting observations of their atmospheres and aid future study of tidally locked atmospheres. As an illustra- studying their atmospheric stability and habitability. The cir- tion, we use it to quantify heat transport due to different culation transports heat, chemical species, and clouds around components of the circulation. This analysis reveals that the the planet. This affects the observable “phase curve,” which is direct day–night component can dominate heat transport the light emitted or reflected by the planet as it rotates (3–5). from the day side to the night side, even when the jet is Accurate retrievals of chemical composition and cloud structure strong. depend on understanding the temperature structure of the atmo- sphere, which is determined by the circulation (6–9). Vertical Author contributions: M.H. and N.T.L. designed research, performed research, analyzed data, and wrote the paper.y motion in the atmosphere affects the transport and distribution The authors declare no competing interest.y of chemical species and clouds (10, 11), which will also have observable effects. In addition, the circulation may be crucial This article is a PNAS Direct Submission.y to supporting a habitable atmosphere on a terrestrial (rocky) Published under the PNAS license.y planet, with sufficient heat transport needed to prevent volatile 1 M.H. and N.T.L. contributed equally to this work.y species from condensing on the cold night side and leading to 2 To whom correspondence may be addressed. Email: [email protected] atmospheric collapse (12–15). Published March 22, 2021. PNAS 2021 Vol. 118 No. 13 e2022705118 https://doi.org/10.1073/pnas.2022705118 j 1 of 12 Downloaded by guest on September 29, 2021 Fig. 1. The global circulation of the idealized tidally locked planets simulated in Exo-FMS and THOR. (Left column) Terrestrial simulation, showing the height and velocity fields at 0.4 bar and the zonal-mean zonal velocity. (Right column) Hot Jupiter simulation, showing the temperature and velocity fields at 0.02 bar and the zonal-mean zonal velocity. Both simulations have the eastward equatorial jet and eastward hot-spot shift typical of tidally locked planets. For both simulations, the substellar point is located at (0◦, 0◦). We show the height field for the terrestrial case and the temperature field for the gaseous case for consistency with the original publications where their overall circulation was analyzed (26, 27). In both atmospheres, the height and temperature fields have the same qualitative structure as the thickness of a hydrostatic layer between two pressure levels is proportional to its temperature (22). This relationship is expressed by the hypsometric equation (28). simulations of tidally locked atmospheres, one representing a produced by these waves (22–24). Fig. 1, Right column shows terrestrial planet (26) and the other a giant gaseous planet the hot Jupiter. Temperature and velocity fields at 0:02 bar are (a “hot Jupiter”) (27). Details of the numerical procedure used shown in Fig. 1, Top Right, and the zonal-mean zonal velocity to invert Eqs. 3 and 4 are provided in Materials and Methods. is shown in Fig. 1, Bottom Right. This atmosphere has the same The Helmholtz decomposition has been used extensively to study key features as the terrestrial case, despite its much higher tem- the Earth’s atmospheric circulation (25). We apply it for the first perature, larger size, and faster rotation rate. In this study we time to the atmospheric circulation of tidally locked planets. decompose the velocity fields of our two simulations into two Fig. 1 shows the global circulation of the terrestrial planet physically distinct circulations and show how they relate to these and hot Jupiter simulations that we analyze in this study. The key features. terrestrial simulation was run using the GCM Exo-FMS (24, 26), using parameters appropriate for typical terrestrial tidally Results locked planets, such as those in the Trappist-1 system (29). Terrestrial Planet. Fig. 2 shows ur and ud at 0:4 bar, calculated The hot Jupiter simulation was run using the GCM THOR (27, from Eqs. 1–4 for the terrestrial circulation shown in Fig. 1. 30), configured with parameters appropriate for the planet HD The rotational circulation is characterized primarily by zonal 189733b (31). In both simulations, the substellar point is located flow around the planet’s axis of rotation, superimposed over a at 0◦ longitude, 0◦ latitude. Model details and parameters are stationary wave pattern, and the divergent circulation is char- described in Materials and Methods for both cases. The data for acterized by roughly isotropic flow away from the substellar the THOR simulation were provided to us by the developers point. of THOR. The rotational circulation has two phenomenological com- Fig. 1, Left column shows the circulation of the terrestrial ponents, which are manifest in the zonal mean of ur and the planet simulation. Fig. 1, Top Left shows the height and veloc- eddy component of ur (Fig. 3). The eddy component corre- ity field at 0:4 bar, and Fig. 1, Bottom Left shows the zonal-mean sponds to planetary waves, primarily stationary Rossby waves zonal velocity. These fields show the key features of its circu- with zonal wavenumber 1 (22–24), which are driven by the lation: a “hot spot” shifted eastward of the substellar point, divergent circulation (20).
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