Ocean circulations and exoplanet climates (

The science of extrasolar planets has matured since the first giant exoplanets were discovered in 1995, with potentially habitable terrestrial planets being discovered all the time. Oceans have a dominant impact on planetary climate, so understanding their effects are a necessary part of modelling terrestrial exoplanets in order to understand future observations. The immense heat capacity of oceans causes their surface temperature to respond slowly to changes in stellar heating. Furthermore, the oceanic circulation can transport huge amounts of heat energy from warm regions that receive more stellar radiation to cold regions that receive less.

Self-consistent modelling of planetary climates requires the use of coupled atmosphere-ocean global circulation models, since oceans and atmospheres interact significantly through fluxes of heat, momentum and freshwater. While some research has been conducted on the range of potential atmospheres of planets, little has so far been conducted on quantifying the role of fundamental oceanic properties such as tides or the configuration continental boundaries. On Earth, tides are a major driver of mixing that forces the large-scale overturning circulation and associated oceanic heat transport. However, Earth is not necessarily a typical planet in terms of its tides. If potentially habitable planets have oceans, then ocean properties and behaviour cannot be assumed to be Earth-like.

The aim of this PhD is to investigate the effects of fundamental oceanic properties on planetary climate using a coupled atmosphere-ocean global circulation model. You will examine the effects of tidal mixing and continental boundaries on the climates of three types of habitable zone orbits (G-star, binary and M-star) to determine how the ocean properties can impact planetary climate and affect the interpretation of future observations. You will join an active research group at UEA in meteorology, oceanography and climate.