InquilineKea comments on Talk about your research - Less Wrong Discussion
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My upcoming project (over the summer) is about studying the atmospheric dynamics of the Precambrian Earth using 3D atmospheric science models (probably using the CAM3 models often used for modelling the Earth's atmosphere). I am then planning to move onto a project to model the 3D dynamics of Earth's atmosphere around various types of stars, which should hopefully help us predict what the atmosphere of an Earth-like exoplanet should look like (spectrally) around various star types
So basically, my primary interests are astronomy and atmospheric science (I'm also really into computer science and statistics, which should help with both). I could say that astrobiology merges them all, but I'm unsure if anything astrobiologically significant will ever come out.
I'm also into super-long-term sustainability, which makes this very relevant (most of the shorter-term sustainability things are already clogged up with people)
What kind of models are used for modelling the atmosphere? Do you use lots of finite-element methods?
Well, the kind of model I'm using is http://www.cesm.ucar.edu/models/atm-cam/docs/description/. I think it uses finite-element methods - I haven't gotten into the raw details of it yet, but I'll read them once school is over. There's also a radiative transfer part that can get quite complex (especially once you get into the photochemistry of molecules other than ozone with higher fluxes of higher-frequency light)
There are other models that use atmosphere+ocean coupling, but for now we'll stick to a slab-ocean model, since full coupling would probably require a supercomputer.
Most of the papers so far have only been on energy-balance models, which are really just 1D models to predict the climate of the planet as a whole.
Here's another example of similar work that has been done (recently) on tidally-locked planets: http://astrobites.com/2011/05/10/pack-your-suitcase-super-earth-gliese-581d-is-in-the-%E2%80%98habitable-zone%E2%80%99/