2016/01/06 by Daniel Kitzmann · 4 citations
Chemistry · Environmental Science · Physics and Astronomy · #Astro and Planetary Science #Astrobiology #Astrophysics #Atmosphere (unit) #Atmospheric and Environmental Gas Dynamics #Atmospheric radiative transfer codes #Atmospheric sciences #Carbon dioxide #Chemistry #Climate change #Environmental science #Geology #Global warming #Greenhouse effect #Greenhouse gas #Mars Exploration Program #Meteorology #Optics #Physics #Planet #Planetary Science and Exploration #Radiative transfer #Scattering #astro-ph.EP
paper · pdf · doi:10.3847/2041-8205/817/2/l18
Accepted for publication in ApJL
arxiv created 2016/01/06 · openalex publication_date 2016/01/28 · arxiv updated 2016/02/03 · openalex created_date 2016/06/24 · openalex updated_date 2026/08/05
ABSTRACT Carbon dioxide ice clouds are thought to play an important role for cold terrestrial planets with thick CO 2 dominated atmospheres. Various previous studies showed that a scattering greenhouse effect by carbon dioxide ice clouds could result in a massive warming of the planetary surface. However, all of these studies only employed simplified two-stream radiative transfer schemes to describe the anisotropic scattering. Using accurate radiative transfer models with a general discrete ordinate method, this study revisits this important effect and shows that the positive climatic impact of carbon dioxide clouds was strongly overestimated in the past. The revised scattering greenhouse effect can have important implications for the early Mars, but also for planets like the early Earth or the position of the outer boundary of the habitable zone.