Dynamically coupled kinetic chemistry in brown dwarf atmospheres I. Performing global scale kinetic modelling

TL;DR

This study couples a kinetic chemistry model with a general circulation model to explore how 3D atmospheric dynamics influence chemical distributions and spectral variability in brown dwarf atmospheres.

Contribution

It introduces a coupled modeling approach to simulate the impact of large-scale atmospheric dynamics on time-dependent chemistry in brown dwarfs.

Findings

Vertical mixing causes strong non-equilibrium chemical behavior.

Zonal flows lead to global spatial variations in chemical composition.

Localized storms and eddies can cause up to 100% contrast in chemical mixing ratios.

Abstract

The atmospheres of brown dwarfs have been long observed to exhibit a multitude of non-equilibrium chemical signatures and spectral variability across the L, T and Y spectral types. We aim to investigate the link between the large-scale 3D atmospheric dynamics and time-dependent chemistry in the brown dwarf regime, and to assess its impact on spectral variability. We couple the miniature kinetic chemistry module `mini-chem' to the Exo-FMS general circulation model (GCM). We then perform a series of idealised brown dwarf regime atmospheric models to investigate the dynamical 3D chemical structures produced by our simulations. The GCM output is post-processed using a 3D radiative-transfer model to investigate hemisphere-dependent spectral signatures and rotational variability. Our results show the expected strong non-equilibrium chemical behaviour brought on by vertical mixing as well as global spacial variations due to zonal flows. Chemical species are generally globally homogenised, showing variations of $\pm$10\% or less, dependent on pressure level, and follow the dynamical structures present in the atmosphere. However, we find localised storm regions and eddies can show higher contrasts, up to $\pm$100\%, in mixing ratio compared to the background global mean. This initial study represents another step in understanding the connection between three-dimensional atmospheric flows in brown dwarfs and their rich chemical inventories.