Habitable Zone Boundaries: Implications for our Solar System and Beyond

Abstract:

The successful completion of NASA’s Kepler Mission has led to renewed interest in the definition and boundaries of the circumstellar habitable zone (HZ), where liquid water can be stable on a planet’s surface. Goldblatt et al. [1] showed that the runaway greenhouse effect, which defines the inner edge of the HZ, depends critically on absorption coefficients of H₂O obtained from the new HITEMP database. Kopparapu et al. [2,3] followed up on this observation by recalculating HZ boundaries using HITEMP coefficients. This caused the inner edge to move out to 0.99 AU in their (fully saturated, cloud-free) 1-D climate model. Leconte et al. [4] then used a 3-D climate model to show that the inner edge moves back in to 0.95 AU when relative humidity and clouds are taken into account. In their model, however, the upper stratosphere remained cold and dry, making it difficult to explain how Venus lost its water. But Leconte et al. only looked at surface temperatures up to ~330 K. At somewhat higher surface temperatures (350 K), our own 1-D model predicts that the stratosphere should indeed become wet [5]. Towards the outer edge of the HZ, it now appears that planets should undergo limit cycles involving global glaciation, CO₂ buildup from volcanism, and CO₂ drawdown from weathering [6,7]. If supplemented with volcanic H₂ [8], such cycles could explain how early Mars could have been cold much of the time and yet have experienced enough warm periods to carve the observed fluvial features. Results from a new model of this process will be discussed. Refs: 1. Goldblatt, C., Robinson, T. D., Zahnle, K. J., & Crisp, D. 2013, Nature Geoscience, 6, 661 2. Kopparapu, R. K., et al. 2013, Astrophysical Journal, 765 3. ---. 2013, Astrophysical Journal, 770 4. Leconte, J., Forget, F., Charnay, B., Wordsworth, R., & Pottier, A. 2013, Nature, 504, 268 5. Kasting, J. F., Chen, H., & Kopparapu, R. K. in prep., Ap J Lett 6. Kadoya, S., & Tajika, E. 2014, Astrophysical Journal, 790 7. Menou, K. in press, Earth Planet. Sci. Lett. 8. Ramirez, R. M., Kopparapu, R., Zugger, M. E., Robinson, T. D., Freedman, R., & Kasting, J. F. 2014, Nature Geosci, 7, 59