The impact of the explicit representation of convection on the climate of a tidally locked planet in global stretched-mesh simulations

التفاصيل البيبلوغرافية
العنوان: The impact of the explicit representation of convection on the climate of a tidally locked planet in global stretched-mesh simulations
المؤلفون: Sergeev, Denis E., Boutle, Ian A., Lambert, F. Hugo, Mayne, Nathan J., Bendall, Thomas, Kohary, Krisztian, Olivier, Enrico, Shipway, Ben
سنة النشر: 2024
المجموعة: Astrophysics
Physics (Other)
مصطلحات موضوعية: Astrophysics - Earth and Planetary Astrophysics, Astrophysics - Instrumentation and Methods for Astrophysics, Physics - Atmospheric and Oceanic Physics
الوصف: Convective processes are crucial in shaping exoplanetary atmospheres but are computationally expensive to simulate directly. A novel technique of simulating moist convection on tidally locked exoplanets is to use a global 3D model with a stretched mesh. This allows us to locally refine the model resolution to 4.7 km and resolve fine-scale convective processes without relying on parameterizations. We explore the impact of mesh stretching on the climate of a slowly rotating TRAPPIST-1e-like planet, assuming it is 1:1 tidally locked. In the stretched-mesh simulation with explicit convection, the climate is 5 K colder and 25% drier than that in the simulations with parameterized convection (with both stretched and quasi-uniform meshes)}. This is due to the increased cloud reflectivity - because of an increase of low-level cloudiness - and exacerbated by the diminished greenhouse effect due to less water vapor. At the same time, our stretched-mesh simulations reproduce the key characteristics of the global climate of tidally locked rocky exoplanets, without any noticeable numerical artifacts. Our methodology opens an exciting and computationally feasible avenue for improving our understanding of 3D mixing in exoplanetary atmospheres. Our study also demonstrates the feasibility of a global stretched mesh configuration for LFRic-Atmosphere, the next-generation Met Office climate and weather model.
Comment: 15 pages, 7 figures; accepted for publication in The Astrophysical Journal
نوع الوثيقة: Working Paper
URL الوصول: http://arxiv.org/abs/2402.19277
رقم الانضمام: edsarx.2402.19277
قاعدة البيانات: arXiv