Impacts of Atmospheric Carbon Species and Stellar Type on Climates of Terrestrial Planets

TL;DR

This study uses a radiative-convective model to analyze how atmospheric carbon species and stellar types influence terrestrial planet climates, revealing that CO's effects vary with star type and atmospheric composition, affecting climate feedbacks and water loss.

Contribution

It provides a systematic analysis of how varying carbon species, especially CO, impact planetary climates across different stellar types using a one-dimensional model.

Findings

CO causes negligible surface temperature change but affects stratospheric temperature.

Increasing CO leads to surface cooling around Sun-like stars but warming around M-type stars.

Converting CO₂ or CH₄ into CO induces cooling, affecting atmospheric evolution.

Abstract

The climates of terrestrial planets are largely determined by the composition of their atmospheres and spectral types of their host stars. Previous studies suggest a wide range of carbon species abundances (CO\textsubscript{2}, CO, and CH\textsubscript{4}) can result from variations in reducing fluxes and stellar spectral types which influence photochemistry. However, a systematic investigation of how varying carbon species, particularly CO, affect planetary climates across wide parameter spaces remains limited. Here, we employ a one-dimensional radiative-convective equilibrium model to examine the dependence of planetary climate on the abundances of carbon species and host star type. We find that CO, due to weak absorption of stellar radiation, induces only moderate changes in stratospheric temperature, while its effect on surface temperature is negligible. Under Earth-like $p_\mathrm{N_2}$ (where $p_\mathrm{i}$ is the partial pressure on the surface of species i), for cases with fixed $p_\mathrm{CO_2}$, increase in CO leads to surface cooling on planets orbiting Sun-like stars unless the sum of $p_\mathrm{CO_2}$ and $p_\mathrm{CH_4}$ exceeds $\sim$1 bar. Whereas it results in surface warming for planets around M-type stars. When the total pressure of carbon species is fixed, converting CO\textsubscript{2} or CH\textsubscript{4} into CO always induces cooling. These effects arise from a combination of CO Rayleigh scattering, pressure broadening of greenhouse gas absorption lines, and \textcolor{red}{varying water vapor levels}. We further discuss how CO- and CH\textsubscript{4}-driven cooling (warming) can trigger positive (negative) climate-photochemistry feedback, influencing atmospheric evolution. Additionally, we suggest CO-rich planets may be less susceptible to water loss and atmospheric oxidation due to lower stratospheric water vapor content.