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Habitable Climates

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David S. Spiegel1, Kristen Menou1 and Caleb A. Scharf1,2

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According to the standard liquid-water definition, the Earth is only partially habitable. We reconsider planetary habitability in the framework of energy balance models, the simplest seasonal models in physical climatology, to assess the spatial and temporal habitability of Earth-like planets. We quantify the degree of climatic habitability of our models with several metrics of fractional habitability. Previous evaluations of habitable zones may have omitted important climatic conditions by focusing on close solar system analogies. For example, we find that model pseudo-Earths with different rotation rates or different land-ocean fractions have fractional habitabilities that differ significantly from that of the Earth itself. Furthermore, the stability of a planet's climate against albedo-feedback snowball events strongly impacts its habitability. Therefore, issues of climate dynamics may be central in assessing the habitability of discovered terrestrial exoplanets, especially if astronomical forcing conditions are different from the moderate solar system cases.

Subject headings

astrobiology; planetary systems; radiative transfer


Dates

Issue 2 (2008 July 10)

Received 2007 November 29, accepted for publication 2008 February 27



  1. Habitable Climates

    David S. Spiegel et al. 2008 ApJ 681 1609

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