Earth’s Polar Night Boundary Layer as an Analog for Dark Side Inversions on Synchronously Rotating Terrestrial Exoplanets

Abstract

Abstract A key factor in determining the potential habitability of synchronously rotating planets is the strength of the atmospheric boundary layer inversion between the dark side surface and the free atmosphere. Here we analyze data obtained from polar night measurements at the South Pole and Alert Canada, which are the closest analogs on Earth to conditions on the dark sides of synchronously rotating exoplanets without and with a maritime influence, respectively. On Earth, such inversions rarely exceed 30 K in strength, because of the effect of turbulent mixing induced by phenomena such as so-called “mesoscale slope winds,” which have horizontal scales of 10–100 s of km, suggesting a similar constraint to near-surface dark side inversions. We discuss the sensitivity of inversion strength to factors such as orography and the global-scale circulation, and compare them to a simulation of the planet Proxima Centauri b. Our results demonstrate the importance of comparisons with Earth data in exoplanet research, and highlight the need for further studies of the exoplanet atmospheric collapse problem using mesoscale and eddy-resolving models.