Enhanced Habitability on High Obliquity Bodies near the Outer Edge of the Habitable Zone of Sun-like Stars

Abstract

High obliquity planets represent potentially extreme limits of terrestrial climate, as they exhibit large seasonality, a reversed annual-mean pole-to-equator gradient of stellar heating, and novel cryospheres. A suite of 3D global climate model simulations is performed for low and high obliquity planets with various stellar fluxes, CO 2 concentrations, and initial conditions to explore the propensity for high obliquity climates to undergo global glaciation. We also simulate planets with thick CO 2 or H 2 atmospheres, such as those expected to develop near or beyond the outer edge of the habitable zone. We show that high obliquity planets are hotter than their low obliquity counterparts due to ice-albedo feedbacks for cold climates, and water vapor in warm climates. We suggest that the water vapor greenhouse trapping is greater on high obliquity bodies for a given global-mean temperature due to the different dynamical regimes that occur between the two states. While equatorial ice belts are stable at high obliquity in some climate regimes, it is substantially harder to achieve global glaciation than for a low obliquity planet. Temperate polar conditions can be present at high obliquity at forcings for which low obliquity planets would be in a hard snowball state. Furthermore, open ocean can persist even in the winter hemisphere and when global-mean temperatures are well below freezing. However, the influence of obliquity diminishes for dense atmospheres, in agreement with calculations from 1D energy balance models.