Hostname: page-component-78c5997874-8bhkd Total loading time: 0 Render date: 2024-11-16T07:29:58.061Z Has data issue: false hasContentIssue false
  • English
  • Français

Habitability: a process versus a state variable framework with observational tests and theoretical implications

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  21 January 2021

A. Lenardic Open the ORCID record for A. Lenardic [Opens in a new window]  and
J. Seales
A. Lenardic*
Affiliation:
Department of Earth Science, Rice University, Houston, TX77251-1892, USA
J. Seales
Affiliation:
Department of Earth Science, Rice University, Houston, TX77251-1892, USA
*
Author for correspondence: A. Lenardic, E-mail: [email protected]
Get access Rights & Permissions [Opens in a new window]

Abstract

The term habitable is used to describe planets that can harbour life. Debate exists as to specific conditions that allow for habitability but the use of the term as a planetary variable has become ubiquitous. This paper poses a meta-level question: What type of variable is habitability? Is it akin to temperature, in that it is something that characterizes a planet, or is something that flows through a planet, akin to heat? That is, is habitability a state or a process variable? Forth coming observations can be used to discriminate between these end-member hypotheses. Each has different implications for the factors that lead to differences between planets (e.g. the differences between Earth and Venus). Observational tests can proceed independent of any new modelling of planetary habitability. However, the viability of habitability as a process can influence future modelling. We discuss a specific modelling framework based on anticipating observations that can discriminate between different views of habitability.

Keywords

HabitabilityexoplanetsVenus
Type
Research Article
Information
International Journal of Astrobiology , Volume 20 , Issue 2 , April 2021 , pp. 125 - 132
Check for updates
Copyright
Copyright © The Author(s) 2021. Published by Cambridge University Press

Access options

Get access to the full version of this content by using one of the access options below. (Log in options will check for institutional or personal access. Content may require purchase if you do not have access.)

References

Arnold, VI (1986) Catastrophe Theory. Berlin: Springer.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Astrom, KJKJ and Murray, RM (2008) Feedback Systems: An Introduction for Scientists and Engineers. Princeton and Oxford: Princeton University Press, https://doi.org/10.5860/choice.46-2107.Google Scholar
Bacon, F (1620) Novum Organum (English translation). In Ellis, RL and Spedding, J (eds) The Philosophical Works of Francis Bacon. London: Routledge (1905), pp. 212–387Google Scholar
Bahcall, S (2019) Loonshots. New York, NY: St. Martin's Press.Google Scholar
Barzel, B, Liu, Y-Y and Barabasi, A-L (2015) Constructing minimal models for complex systems dynamics. Nature Communications 6, 7186. doi: 10.1038/ncomms8186-www.nature.com/naturecommunications.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Bean, JL, Abbot, DS and Kempton, EM-R (2017) A statistical comparative planetology approach to the hunt for habitable exoplanets and life beyond the solar system. The Astrophysical Journal Letters 841, L24. doi: 10.3847/2041-8213/aa738a.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Bejan, A (2000) Shape and Structure, from Engineering to Nature. Cambridge, UK: Cambridge University Press.Google Scholar
Bejan, A and Lorente, S (2006) Constructal theory of configuration generation in nature and engineering. The Journal of Applied Physics 100, 041301, https://doi.org/10.1063/1.2221896.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Bohm, D (1961) Causality and Chance in Modern Physics. New York, NY: Harper and Row Publishers.Google Scholar
Bridgman, PW (1941) The Nature of Thermodynamics. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Broecker, WS (1987) How to Build a Habitable Planet. Lamont-Doherty Earth Observatory, Palisades, NY: Eldigio Press.Google Scholar
Brooks, RJ and Tobias, AM (1996) Choosing the best model: levels of detail, complexity, and model performance. Mathematical and Computer Modelling 24, 1–14.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Bruno, G, Lewis, NK and Stevenson, KB, Filippazzo, J, Hill, M, Fraine, JD, Wakeford, HR, Deming, D, Kilpatrick, B, Line, MR, Morley, CV, Collins, KA, Conti, DM, Garlitz, J and Rodriguez, JE (2017) A comparative study of WASP-67b and HAT-P-38b from WFC3 data. The Astronomical Journal 155, 55. doi: 10.3847/1538-3881/aaa0c7.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Budyko, MI (1969) The effect of solar radiation variations on the climate of the Earth. Tellus 21, 611–619.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Butzer, KW (2012) Collapse, environment, and society. PNAS 109, 362–3639.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Carpenter, S, Walker, B, Anderies, JM and Abel, N (2001) From metaphor to measurement: resilience of what to what?. Ecosystems 4, 765–781. doi:10.1007/s10021-001-0045-9.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Chamberlin, TC (1897) The method of multiple working hypotheses. Journal of Geology 5, 837–848.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Checlair, JH, Abbot, DS, Webber, RJ, and 37 others (2019) A statistical comparative planetology approach to maximize the scientific return of future exoplanet characterization efforts, arXiv:1903.05211 [astro-ph.EP].Google Scholar
Cirkovic, MM (2018) The Great Silence. Oxford, UK: Oxford University Press.Google Scholar
Close, CM, Frederick, DK and Newell, JC (2001) Modeling and Analysis of Dynamic Systems, 3rd Edn. New York: Wiley.Google Scholar
Cockell, CS, Stevens, AH and Prescott, R (2019) Habitability is a binary property. Nature Astronomy 3, 956–957.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Crowley, JW and O'Connell, RJ (2012) An analytic model of convection in a system with layered viscosity and plates. Geophysical Journal International 188, 61–78.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Crowley, JW, Gž, M and O'Connell, RJ (2011) On the relative influence of heat and water transport on planetary dynamics. Earth and Planetary Science Letters 310(3–4), 380–388, https://doi.org/10.1016/j.epsl.2011.08.035.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Feduzi, A and Runde, J (2014) Uncovering unknown unknowns: towards a Baconian approach to management decision-making. Organizational Behavior and Human Decision Processes 124, 268–283. http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/j.obhdp.2014.04.001.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Foley, BJ and Driscoll, PE (2016) Whole planet coupling between climate, mantle, and core: Implications for rocky planet evolution. Geochemistry, Geophysics, Geosystems 17, 1885–1914. doi: 10.1002/2015GC006210.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Guckenheimer, J and Holmes, P (1983) Nonlinear Oscillations, Dynamical Systems, and Bifurcations of Vector Fields, Applied Mathematical Sciences. New York, NY: Springer. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-1-4612-1140-2.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Halekotte, L and Feudel, U (2020) Minimal fatal shocks in multistable complex networks. Scientific Reports 10, 11783, https://doi.org/10.1038/s41598-020-68805-6.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Heller, R (2020) Habitability is a continuous property of nature. Nature Astronomy 4, 294–295.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Hogg, RV and Tanis, EA (1997) Probability and Statistical Inference. Upper Saddle River, NJ: Prentice-Hall.Google Scholar
Jen, E (2003) Stable or robust? What's the difference?. Complexity 8, 12–18.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Kane, S, Arney, G, Crisp, D, Domagal-Goldman, S, Glaze, L, Goldblatt, C, Grinspoon, D, Head, J, Lenardic, A, Unterborn, C, Way, M and Zahnle, K (2019) Venus as a laboratory for exoplanetary science. Journal of Geophysical Research 124, 2015–2028. https://doi.org/10.1029/2019JE005939.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Kasting, JF, Whitmire, DP and Reynolds, RT (1993) Habitable zones around main sequence stars. Icarus 101, 108–128.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Kopparapu, RK, Ramirez, R, Kasting, JF, Eymet, V, Robinson, TD, Mahadevan, S, Terrien, RC, Domagal-Goldman, S, Meadows, V and Deshpande, R (2013) Habitable zones around main-sequence stars: new estimates. The Astrophysical Journal 765, 131. doi: 10.1088/0004-637X/765/2/131.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Landau, LD and Lifshitz, EM (1951) Statistical Physics. Oxford, UK: Elsevier Butterworth-Heinemann.Google Scholar
Leconte, J, Forget, F, Charnay, B, Wordsworth, R, Selsis, F, Millour, E and Spiga, A (2013) 3D climate modeling of close-in land planets: circulation patterns, climate moist bistability, and habitability. Astronomy and Astrophysics 554, A69.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Lenardic, A (2018) The diversity of tectonic modes and thoughts about transitions between them. Philosophical Transactions of the Royal Society, Series A (Physical Sciences and Engineering) 374, 20170416. https://doi.org/10.1098/rsta.2017.0416, 2018Google Scholar
Lenardic, A and Seales, J (2019) Different is more: the value of finding an inhabited planet that is far from Earth2.0. Astrobiology 19, 1398–1409. doi: 10.1089/ast.2018.1833.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Lenardic, A, Crowley, JW, Jellinek, AM and Weller, M (2016) The solar system of forking paths: bifurcations in planetary evolution and the search for life bearing planets in our Galaxy. Astrobiology 16, 551–559. doi: 10.1089/ast.2015.1378.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Lenardic, A, Weller, M, Hoink, T and Seales, J (2019) Toward a boot strap hypothesis of plate tectonics: feedbacks between tectonics, mantle viscosity, and the wavelength of mantle convection. Physics of the Earth and Planetary Interiors 296, 106299. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.pepi.2019.106299.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Lotka, AJ (1924) The intervention of consciousness in mechanics. Science Progress in the Twentieth Century (1919–1933) 18, 407–419.Google Scholar
Lovelock, J (1979) Gaia: A New Look at Life on Earth. Oxford, UK: Oxford University Press.Google Scholar
Lovelock, JE and Margulis, L (1974) Atmospheric homeostasis by and for the biosphere: the Gaia hypothesis,. Tellus 26. doi: 10.1111/j.2153-3490.1974.tb01946.x.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Maxwell, JC (1873) Essay for the Erananus Clun on science and free will. In Campbell, L and Garnett, W (eds) Life of Clerk Maxwell. London: Routledge (1882), pp. 434–444.Google Scholar
Monod, J (1970) Chance and Necessity: An Essay on the Natural Philosophy of Modern Biology. New York, NY: Knopf.Google Scholar
Prigogine, I (1996) The End of Certainty. New York, NY: Editions Odile Jacob.Google Scholar
Roe, GH and Baker, MB (2010) Notes on a catastrophe: a feedback analysis of snowball Earth. Journal of Climate 23, 4694–4703. doi: 10.1175/2010JCLI3545.1.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Scheffer, M (2009) Critical Transitions in Nature and Society. Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Seales, J and Lenardic, A (2020 a) Deep water cycling and multi-stage cooling of the earth. Geochemistry, Geophysics, Geosystems 21, e2020GC009106. doi: https://doi.org/10.1029/2020GC009106.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Seales, J and Lenardic, A (2020 b) Uncertainty quantification for planetary thermal history models: implications for hypotheses discrimination and habitability modeling. The Astrophysical Journal 893, 114, https://doi.org/10.3847/1538-4357/ab822b)CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Seales, J, Lenardic, A and Moore, WB (2019) Assessing the intrinsic uncertainty and structural stability of planetary models: 1. parameterized thermal-tectonic history models. Journal of Geophysical Research 124, 2213–2232. https://doi.org/10.1029/2019JE005918.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Seely, S (1964) Dynamic Systems Analysis. New York, NY: Reinhold Publishing Co.Google Scholar
Sleep, N (2000) Evolution of the mode of convection within terrestrial planets. Journal of Geophysical Research 105, 17563–17578.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Smith, E and Morowitz, H J (2016) The Origin and Nature of Life on Earth (The Emergence of the Fourth Geosphere). Cambridge UK: Cambridge University Press.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Spiegel, DS, Menou, K and Scharf, CA (2008) Habitable climates. The Astrophysical Journal 681, 1609–1623.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Stevenson, DJ (2018) Commentary: the habitability mantra: Hunting the Snark. Physics Today 71, 10–11, https://doi.org/10.1063/PT.3.4054.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Taleb, N (2012) Antifragile: Things that Gain From Disorder. New York: Random House.Google Scholar
Thom, R (1983) Parabolas et Catastrophes. Paris: Flammarion.Google Scholar
Walker, J, Hays, P and Kasting, J (1981) A negative feedback mechanism for the long-term stabilization of Earth's surface temperature. Journal of Geophysical Research 86, 9776–9782.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Walker, SI, Bains, W and Cronin, L and 10 others (2018) Exoplanet biosignatures: future directions. Astrobiology 18, 779–824. doi: 10.1089/ast.2017.1738.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Ward, P (2009) The Medea Hypothesis: Is Life on Earth Ultimately Self-Destructive?. New Jersey: Princeton University Press.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Way, MJ and Delgenio, AD (2020) Venusian habitable climate scenarios: modeling Venus through time and applications to slowly rotating Venus-like exoplanets. The Journal of Geophysical Research: Planets 125, e2019JE006276.Google Scholar
Weller, M and Lenardic, A (2012) Hysteresis in mantle convection: plate tectonics systems. Geophysical Research Letters 39, L10202. doi: 10.1029/2012GL051232.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Wright, JT (2019) Wanting funds to ‘look everywhere’. Physics Today 72, 12, https://doi.org/10.1063/PT.3.4216Google Scholar
Zuluaga, JI, Salazar, JF, Cuartas-Restrepo, P and Poveda, G (2014) The habitable zone of inhabited planets. Biogeosciences Discussion 11, 8443–8483. doi: 10.5194/bgd-11-8443-2014.Google Scholar