Climate of Extraterrestrial Planets with Oceans and Carbonate-Silicate Geochemical Cycle Under Various Obliquities

• Published in: Proceedings of the International Astronomical Union
• Main Authors: Watanabe, Yoshiyasu, Tajika, Eiichi, Kadoya, Shintaro
• Format: Article in Journal/Newspaper
• Language: English
• Published: Cambridge University Press (CUP) 2012
• Subjects: Astronomy and Astrophysics; Space and Planetary Science; Ice cap
• Online Access: http://dx.doi.org/10.1017/s1743921313013112; https://www.cambridge.org/core/services/aop-cambridge-core/content/view/S1743921313013112

Abstract We systematically investigated the climate of water-rich terrestrial planets with a negative feedback mechanism of carbonate-silicate geochemical cycle against the climate under various obliquities and semi-major axes. We found that, while the permanent ice-cap mode (partially ice-covered throughout the year) and the seasonal ice-cap mode (partially ice-covered seasonally) exist stably at low obliquity conditions, the ranges of semi-major axis for these climate modes shrink and finally disappear with an increase of obliquity. When carbonate-silicate geochemical cycle is taken into account, the ranges of semi-major axis for all the climate modes expand at any obliquities, compared with the cases without carbonate-silicate geochemical cycle, indicating that the carbonate-silicate geochemical cycle strongly stabilizes the climate for the planets with any obliquities inside the habitable zone.