Science & Technology Corporation

The Diversity of the Thousands of Exoplanets That Have Been Discovered So Far Ensures the Existence of a Wide Range of Planetary Atmospheres. in Particular Rocky Planets Close to Their Stellar Habitable Zones Hold Special Promise for Habitable Climates. the ROCKE3D Project Seeks to Understand the Many Important Effects on Climate That Can Only Be Investigated by Full 3D GCM Models. the Profound Effects of Orbital Parameters Atmospheric/oceanic Heat Transport and the Spatially Variable Impacts of Clouds and Surface Ice on Another World Must Be Understood in Order to Assess Its Habitability. Because of the Large Range of Exoplanetary Conditions and the Complexity of Climate Feedbacks It Is Useful to Have Very Detailed 1D Climate Models to Guide the Computationally Expensive General Circulation Model Calculations. I Will Use the General-purpose 1D Radiative-convective Model QRT to Calculate the Globally Averaged Temperature and Cloud Structure of Exoplanet Atmospheres of Interest. the 1D Model Will Be Used to Explore the Parameter Space Near the Inner Edges of the Habitable Zone to Guide Full ROCKE3D Calculations of Climates Near These Regimes. QRT Will Also Be Used for First-look Simulations of the Atmospheres of Rocky Planets That Have Recently Been Discovered [e.g. (jenkins and Twickens 2015)]. an Additional Module for Exploring the Potential Habitability of Exoplanet Clouds Will Be Developed and Incorporated Into the 1D Chemical Continuity Equations of QRT. Microbial Growth in Exoplanet Cloud Aerosols May Eventually Be Incorporated Into GCM Cloud Microphysics to Explore the Extent of Possible Biospheres in Planetary Atmosphere.