Evolution of the atmospheres of Earth and Earth-like planets

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The evolution of Earth's atmosphere through time depends on the interaction of many parts of the Earth System. The proposed work is to study this evolution, linking geochemical change, atmospheric composition and climate. Areas of particular emphasis will be the early Earth atmosphere (changes in bulk atmospheric composition, greenhouse gas inventories, the "faint young Sun paradox" and low-latitude glaciation) and hot "runaway greenhouse" atmospheres (impact induced during the late heavy bombardment, insolation driven in Earth's future and Venus' past). For geochemical evolution, the focus is on novel quantitative synthesis of existing data, including the development of new conceptual and numerical models. Work on climate will use a hierarchy of models: an existing line-by-line radiative transfer code for reference radiative transfer calculations, a existing radiative-convective climate model and a new 2D statistical dynamical climate model which will be developed as part of the proposed work. This work addresses fundamental questions of Earth evolution and has relevance to understanding contemporary climate change and to understanding the atmospheres of extra-solar planets.