International Summer Institute for Modeling in Astrophysics

We examine the dynamical mechanisms that control heat transport in atmospheres of tidally locked planets. Current estimates of heat redistribution in atmospheres of hot Jupiters generally only consider the equilibrium of stellar irradiation and advection. In this work, we show that gravity waves can effectively transport heat on global scales in atmospheres of tidally locked planets. A simple 1D atmospheric shallow-water model is used to study the day/night temperature contrast as a function of the radiative, advective, frictional, and wave-travel timescales of the atmosphere. We qualitatively compare our results with those made by 2D non-linear shallow-water simulations.