Only Impacts of Greater Than 300 km dia Would Have Long Term Effects on Venus (or Analogues)

Effect of a single large impact on the coupled atmosphere-interior evolution of Venus

Authors:

Gillmann et al

Abstract:

We investigate the effect of a single large impact either during the Late Veneer or Late Heavy Bombardment on the evolution of the mantle and atmosphere of Venus. We use a coupled interior/exterior numerical code based on StagYY developed in Gillmann and Tackley (Gillmann, C., Tackley, P.J. [2014]. J. Geophys. Res. 119, 1189–1217). Single vertical impacts are simulated as instantaneous events affecting both the atmosphere and mantle of the planet by (i) eroding the atmosphere, causing atmospheric escape and (ii) depositing energy in the crust and mantle of the planet. The main impactor parameters include timing, size/mass, velocity and efficiency of energy deposition. We observe that impact erosion of the atmosphere is a minor effect compared to melting and degassing triggered by energy deposition in the mantle and crust. We are able to produce viable pathways that are consistent with present-day Venus, especially considering large Late Veneer Impacts. Small collisions (less than 100 km radius) have only local and transient effects. Medium-sized impactors (100–400 km) do not have much more consequence unless the energy deposition is enhanced, for example by a fast collision. In that case, they have comparable effects to the largest category of impacts (400–800 km): a strong thermal anomaly affecting both crust and mantle and triggering melting and a change in mantle dynamics patterns. Such an impact is a global event and can be responsible for volcanic events focused at the impact location and near the antipode. Depending on the timing of the impact, it can also have major consequences for the long-term evolution of the planet and its surface conditions by either (i) efficiently depleting the upper mantle of the planet, leading to the early loss of its water or (ii) imposing a volatile-rich and hot atmosphere for billions of years.

Obliquity Variability of a Potentially Habitable Early Venus

Obliquity Variability of a Potentially Habitable Early Venus

Authors:

Barnes et al

Abstract:

Venus currently rotates slowly, with its spin controlled by solid-body and atmospheric thermal tides. However, conditions may have been far different 4 billion years ago, when the Sun was fainter and most of the carbon within Venus could have been in solid form, implying a low-mass atmosphere. We investigate how the obliquity would have varied for a hypothetical rapidly rotating Early Venus. The obliquity variation structure of an ensemble of hypothetical Early Venuses is simpler than that Earth would have if it lacked its large Moon (Lissauer et al., 2012), having just one primary chaotic regime at high prograde obliquities. We note an unexpected long-term variability of up to ±7∘ for retrograde Venuses. Low-obliquity Venuses show very low total obliquity variability over billion-year timescales -- comparable to that of the real Moon-influenced Earth.

Exploring the Inner Edge of the Habitable Zone with Fully Coupled Oceans

Exploring the Inner Edge of the Habitable Zone with Fully Coupled Oceans

Authors:

Way et al

Abstract:

Rotation in planetary atmospheres plays an important role in regulating atmospheric and oceanic heat flow, cloud formation and precipitation. Using the Goddard Institute for Space Studies (GISS) three dimension General Circulation Model (3D-GCM) we investigate how the effects of varying rotation rate and increasing the incident stellar flux on a planet set bounds on a planet's habitable zone with its parent star. From ensemble climate simulations we identify which factors are the primary controllers of uncertainty in setting these bounds. This is shown in particular for fully coupled ocean (FCO) runs -- some of the first that have been utilized in this context. Results with a Slab Ocean (SO) of 100m mixed layer depth are compared with a similar study by Yang et al. 2014, which demonstrates consistency across models. However, there are clear differences for rotations rates of 1-16x present Earth sidereal day lengths between the 100m SO and FCO models, which points to the necessity of using FCOs whenever possible. The latter was recently demonstrated quite clearly by Hu & Yang 2014 in their aquaworld study with a FCO when compared with similar mixed layer ocean studies and by Cullum et al. 2014.

We also show how these results have implications for Venus in the early history of our Solar System since even at this time Venus received more solar flux than Earth does today while it may still have had a slow retrograde rotation. The Venus runs utilize a 2.9Gya solar spectrum generated with the code of Claire et al. 2012, a modern Venus topography with an ocean filling the lowlands (giving an equivalent depth of 310 meters if spread across the entire surface), atmosphere of 1 bar N2, CO2=0.4mb, CH4=0.001mb and present day orbital parameters, radius, & gravity. We demonstrate that ancient Venus could have had quite moderate surface temperatures given these assumptions.

Did Venus Lose its Volatiles Through a Theia Like Impact?

Impact-driven planetary desiccation: The origin of the dry Venus

Author:

Kurosawa

Abstract:

The fate of surface water on Venus is one of the most important outstanding problems in comparative planetology. Here a new concept is proposed to explain water removal on a steam-covered proto Venus, referred to as impact-driven planetary desiccation. Since a steam atmosphere is photochemically unstable, water vapor dissociates into hydrogen and oxygen. Then, hydrogen escapes easily into space through hydrodynamic escape driven by strong extreme ultraviolet radiation from the young Sun. The focus is on the intense impact bombardment during the terminal stage of planetary accretion as generators of a significant amount of reducing agent. The fine-grained ejecta remove the residual oxygen, the counter part of escaped hydrogen, via the oxidation of iron-bearing rocks in a hot atmosphere. Thus, hypervelocity impacts cause net desiccation of the planetary surface. I constructed a stochastic cratering model using a Monte Carlo approach to investigate the cumulative mass of nonoxidized, ejected rocks due to the intense impact bombardment. It is shown that a thick steam atmosphere with a mass equivalent to that of the terrestrial oceans would be removed. The cumulative mass of rocky ejecta released into the atmosphere reaches 1 wt% of the host planet, which is 10000 times of the current mass of the Earths atmosphere. These results strongly suggest that chemical reactions between such large amounts of ejecta and planetary atmospheres are among the key factors required to understand atmospheric mass and its composition, not only in the Solar System but also in extrasolar systems.

Using Venus' Solar Transit to Study Exoplanetary Transits

A new view on exoplanet transits: Transit of Venus described using three-dimensional solar atmosphere Stagger-grid simulations

Authors:

Chiavassa et al

Abstract:

Stellar activity and, in particular, convection-related surface structures, potentially cause fluctuations that can affect the transit light curves. Surface convection simulations can help the interpretation of ToV. We used realistic three-dimensional radiative hydrodynamical simulation of the Sun from the Stagger-grid and synthetic images computed with the radiative transfer code Optim3D to provide predictions for the transit of Venus in 2004 observed by the satellite ACRIMSAT. We computed intensity maps from RHD simulation of the Sun and produced synthetic stellar disk image. We computed the light curve and compared it to the ACRIMSAT observations and also to the light curves obtained with solar surface representations carried out using radial profiles with different limb-darkening laws. We also applied the same spherical tile imaging method to the observations of center-to-limb Sun granulation with HINODE. We managed to explain ACRIMSAT observations of 2004 ToV and showed that the granulation pattern causes fluctuations in the transit light curve. We evaluated the contribution of the granulation to the ToV. We showed that the granulation pattern can partially explain the observed discrepancies between models and data. This confirms that the limb-darkening and the granulation pattern simulated in 3D RHD Sun represent well what is imaged by HINODE. In the end, we found that the Venus's aureole contribution during ToV is less intense than the solar photosphere, and thus negligible. Being able to explain consistently the data of 2004 ToV is a new step forward for 3D RHD simulations that are becoming essential for the detection and characterization of exoplanets. They show that the granulation have to be considered as an intrinsic incertitude, due to the stellar variability, on precise measurements of exoplanet transits of, most likely, planets with small diameters.

Does High Atmospheric CO2 Trigger a Runaway Greenhouse Scenario?

Can Increased Atmospheric CO2 Levels Trigger a Runaway Greenhouse?

Authors:

Ramirez et al

Abstract:

Recent one-dimensional (globally averaged) climate model calculations by Goldblatt et al. (2013) suggest that increased atmospheric CO2 could conceivably trigger a runaway greenhouse on present Earth if CO2 concentrations were approximately 100 times higher than they are today. The new prediction runs contrary to previous calculations by Kasting and Ackerman (1986), which indicated that CO2 increases could not trigger a runaway, even at Venus-like CO2 concentrations. Goldblatt et al. argued that this different behavior is a consequence of updated absorption coefficients for H2O that make a runaway more likely. Here, we use a 1-D climate model with similar, up-to-date absorption coefficients, but employ a different methodology, to show that the older result is probably still valid, although our model nearly runs away at ∼12 preindustrial atmospheric levels of CO2 when we use the most alarmist assumptions possible. However, we argue that Earth's real climate is probably stable given more realistic assumptions, although 3-D climate models will be required to verify this result. Potential CO2 increases from fossil fuel burning are somewhat smaller than this, 10-fold or less, but such increases could still cause sufficient warming to make much of the planet uninhabitable by humans.