3D modeling of clouds in GJ1214b' s atmosphere

GJ1214 b is a warm super-Earth/mini-Neptune and one of the few whose atmosphere is characterizable by current telescopes. Recent observations indicated a flat spectrum in near infrared which has been interpreted as the presence of high and thick condensate clouds or photochemical haze. However, the presence of such high and thick cloud/haze is not well understood and probably requires a strong vertical mixing linked to the atmospheric circulation. We studied the atmospheric dynamics and cloud formation on GJ1214 b with the Generic LMDZ, a very flexible 3D GCM developed to simulate any kind of atmosphere. In this talk, I will present results obtained with the Generic LMDZ about the dynamics of GJ1214 b' s atmosphere for different atmospheric composition (i.e. solar, solar enriched in heavy elements and pure water) and with condensate clouds (i.e. KCl and ZnS). I will discuss the conditions for the formation of high condensate clouds, and I will show their impacts on the thermal structure, transit spectra and thermal phase curves.