Abstract

The first detection of an exoplanet, planets outside our solar system, was made over twenty years ago. The number of detected planets has rapidly increased over these two decades, and the field, driven by the huge diversity of planetary states, has transitioned to an era of characterisation. Observations have now provided, in some cases, glimpses of the atmospheric state of these atmospheres providing constraint on compositions, temperatures and even wind speeds.

At the University of Exeter we are developing a theoretical framework with which to interpret current, and future observations of exoplanets and place them in context with our own planet.

I will present the results of our state-of-the art 1D and 3D models when applied to gas giants, i.e. transiting hot Jupiters, young giant planets and Brown Dwarfs. This includes treatments of the dynamics, chemistry and radiative transfer within these atmospheres.

I will also overview how we incorporate our developments in the UK Met Office infrastructure, and detail the envisaged evolution of our modeling framework to more Earth-like planets as the observations evolve in this direction.