Effects of variable eccentricity on the climate of an Earth-like world

Abstract

The Kepler era of exoplanetary discovery has presented the Astronomical community with a cornucopia of planetary systems very different from the one which we inhabit. It has long been known that Jupiter plays a major role in the orbital parameters of Mars and it's climate, but there is also a long-standing belief that Jupiter would play a similar role for Earth if not for its large moon. Using a three dimensional general circulation model (3-D GCM) with a fully-coupled ocean we simulate what would happen to the climate of an Earth-like world if Mars did not exist, but a Jupiter-like planet was much closer to Earth's orbit. We investigate two scenarios that involve evolution of the Earth-like planet's orbital eccentricity from 0--0.283 over 6500 years, and from 0--0.066 on a time scale of 4500 years. In both cases we discover that they would maintain relatively temperate climates over the time-scales simulated. More Earth-like planets in multi-planet systems will be discovered as we continue to survey the skies and the results herein show that the proximity of large gas giant planets may play an important role in the habitability of these worlds. These are the first such 3-D GCM simulations using a fully-coupled ocean with a planetary orbit that evolves over time due to the presence of a giant planet.

11 pages, 4 figures, 1 table, submitted to ApJ Letters. Updated figures and discussion at referee request

References in corpus (10)

• The James Webb Space Telescope
• Strong Dependence of the Inner Edge of the Habitable Zone on Planetary Rotation Rate
• Habitable Climates: The Influence of Eccentricity
• Jupiter's Decisive Role in the Inner Solar System's Early Evolution
• Effects of Extreme Obliquity Variations on the Habitability of Exoplanets
• Analytic orbit propagation for transiting circumbinary planets
• 3D climate modeling of Earth-like extrasolar planets orbiting different types of host stars
• Earth-like Habitats in Planetary Systems
• Dynamics of atmospheres with a non-dilute condensible component
• Eccentricity evolution in hierarchical triple systems with eccentric outer binaries

Cited by in corpus (20)

• The Equilibrium Temperature of Planets in Elliptical Orbits
• A Second Earth-Sized Planet in the Habitable Zone of the M Dwarf, TOI-700
• Detectability of Chlorofluorocarbons in the Atmospheres of Habitable M-dwarf Planets
• Quantifying the Influence of Jupiter on the Earth's Orbital Cycles
• In the Presence of a Wrecking Ball: Orbital Stability in the HR 5183 System
• Sporadic Spin-Orbit Variations in Compact Multi-planet Systems and their Influence on Exoplanet Climate
• System Architecture and Planetary Obliquity: Implications for Long-Term Habitability
• Eta-Earth Revisited II: Deriving a Maximum Number of Earth-like Habitats in the Galactic Disk
• Hot exoplanetary atmospheres in 3D
• Hydrologic Cycle Weakening in Hothouse Climates
• Aquaplanet Models on Eccentric Orbits: Effects of Rotation Rate on Observables
• Higher Water Loss on Earth-like Exoplanets in Eccentric Orbits
• Orbital Dynamics and the Evolution of Planetary Habitability in the AU Mic System
• Inner Habitable Zone Boundary for Eccentric Exoplanets
• Exploring Climate with Obliquity in a Variable-eccentricity Earth-like World
• Effect of Sea-ice Drift on the Onset of Snowball Climate on Rapidly Rotating Aqua-planets
• A One-Dimensional Energy Balance Model Parameterization for the Formation of CO2 Ice on the Surfaces of Eccentric Extrasolar Planets
• Relative Habitability of Exoplanet Systems with Two Giant Planets
• Precise Physical Parameters, Habitability, and Orbital Stability of Sun-like SB2 Systems: HD 130669, HD 184467, HD 191854, and HD 214222
• Circumbinary habitable zones in the presence of a giant planet