What is it about?
Application of climate models and ecological theories to establish just how habitable exoplanets. Most models of habitability only consider the gross properties of the planets. In this article I take climate models for a variety of worlds that are tidally-locked to (synchronously rotating with) a red dwarf. I apply basic ecological ideas to investigate the effect of the climate model on a planet with an Earth-like distribution of continents.
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Why is it important?
This is the first article that really takes the climate models of various researchers and asks if these are valid, what are the effects of these circulation models on the habitability of planets that orbit within the circumstellar habitable zone of red dwarfs.
Perspectives
I've felt that most of the considerations of habitability have ignored the biological potential of the planet in the context of the climates that are likely. While many authors consider the presence, absence or loss of atmospheres, I decided to take the models as plausible and begin the ecological dissection of their consequences.
Dr David Sinclair Stevenson
Carlton le Willows Academy
Read the Original
This page is a summary of: Evolutionary Exobiology II: investigating biological potential of synchronously-rotating worlds, International Journal of Astrobiology, July 2018, Cambridge University Press,
DOI: 10.1017/s1473550418000241.
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