Orateur
Description
Understanding the atmospheric circulation, radiative transfer and atmo-
spheric chemistry of exoplanets is crucial for our understanding of these objects.
In particular, Hot Jupiters are among the most observed type of exoplanets and
have no equivalent in our Solar System. During the last decade, observational
and modelling efforts have been made to begin the atmospheric characterisation
of these exoplanets.
We set out to use the generic Planetary Climate Model, a 3D Global Climate
Model developed for paleoclimate and temperate exoplanets studies to simulate
the atmosphere of Hot Jupiter. As a case study, we chose to model WASP-43
b, a Hot Jupiter with an orbital period of 19.5 hours and an equilibrium tem-
perature of 1400 K. This planet has already been observed by the Hubble Space
Telescope and the Spitzer Space telescope, yielding crucial information about key
atmospheric processes, but also raising substantial questions about cloudiness,
chemistry and wind patterns. Moreover, this planet will be observed by JWST
on December 1 th 2022, providing astounding data.
Our simulations are able to replicate the already known atmospheric patterns of
the atmosphere of Hot Jupiters, that we will present during this talk. We show
that cloudless simulations are unable to reproduce the aforementioned data.
Thus, we developed and incorporated into our model a scheme to simulate the
formation of clouds in the atmosphere, and their radiative effects, in a fully
coherent manner. We will discuss our preliminary results using the cloud model
and how it could explain the incoming JWST observations.
