Research Interests

My research interests encompass the study of planetary climates and atmospheric circulations, including the study of the Earth, the planets of the solar system and beyond. I am interested in the study of planetary climates using a theoretical and numerical approach. My goal is to have a better understanding of the diversity of climates and atmospheric circulations, to search and characterize Earth-like exoplanets and look for signs of life on habitable worlds.

Current Research

OASIS – Planet Climate Simulator

My research focuses on the study of planetary atmospheres using global circulation models. I have been developing from ground-up a Global Circulation Model (GCM) dedicated to the study of planetary atmospheres. …
Other modules, such as, radiation transfer, chemistry and representation of clouds have also been implemented in the model. 

References:

– Mendonca J., ‘Mass Transport in a Moist Planetary Climate Model’, 2021, accepted for publication in Astronomy & Astrophysics

– Mendonca J. & Buchhave L., ‘Modelling the 3D Climate of Venus with OASIS’, 2020, Volume 496, Pages 3512-3530, Monthly Notices of the Royal Astronomical Society

Precipitation on a water world (mm/h).

THOR – Dynamical Core

THOR, solves the fully compressible – non-hydrostatic fluid equations in an icosahedral grid and is intended to be flexible enough to explore a large diversity of planetary atmospheres. …

References:

– Mendonca J., ‘Mass Transport in a Moist Planetary Climate Model’, 2021, accepted for publication in Astronomy & Astrophysics

– Deitrick R., Mendonca J.,  Schroffenegger U., Grimm S., Shang-Min T., Heng K., ‘THOR 2.0: Major Improvements to the Open-Source General Circulation Model’, 2020,  Volume 248, Issue 2, Pages 30, The Astrophysical Journal Supplement Series

– Mendonca J., Grimm S., Grosheintz L., Heng K., ‘THOR: A New and Flexible Global Circulation Model to Explore Planetary Atmospheres’, 2016, Volume 829, Issue 2, The Astrophysical Journal

(c) Grosheintz - 3D Icosahedral grid

Atmospheric Dynamics & Chemistry

…

References:
Mendonca J., ‘Angular Momentum and Heat Transport on Tidally Locked Hot Jupiter Planets’, 2020, Volume 491, Issue 1, Pages 1456–1470, Monthly Notices of the Royal Astronomical Society
 
Mendonca J., Tsai S., Malik M., Grimm S., Heng K.,  ‘Three-Dimensional Circulation Driving Chemical Disequilibrium in Wasp-43b’, 2018, Volume 869, Issue 2, The Astrophysical Journal
 
Mendonca J., Malik M., Demory B., Heng K., ‘Revisiting the Phase Curves of WASP-43b: Confronting Reanalyzed Spitzer Data with Cloudy Atmospheres’, 2018, Volume 155, Issue 4, The Astronomical Journal
 
Tsai S., Kitzmann D., Lyons J., Mendonca J.,  Grimm S., Heng K., ‘Towards Consistent Modeling of Atmospheric Chemistry and Dynamics in Exoplanets: Validation and Generalization of Chemical Relaxation Method’, 2018, Volume 862, Issue 1, The Astrophysical Journal

Venus Climate

…

References:
 
– Shao W., Zhang X.,  Mendonca J., Encrenaz T., ‘Local-time Dependence of Chemical Species in the Venusian Mesosphere’, 2021, accepted for publication in The Planetary Science Journal
 
– Mendonca J. & Buchhave L., ‘Modelling the 3D Climate of Venus with OASIS’, 2020, Volume 496, Pages 3512-3530, Monthly Notices of the Royal Astronomical Society
 
– Mendonca J. and Read P., ‘Exploring the Venus global super-rotation using a comprehensive Global Circulation Model’, 2016, Volume 134, pp 1-18, Planetary and Space Sciences
 
– Mendonca J., Read P., Wilson C., Lee C., ‘A new, fast and flexible radiative transfer method for Venus general circulation models’, 2015, Volume 105, p. 80-93., Planetary and Space Science
 
– Mendonca J., Read P., Wilson C., Lewis S., ‘Zonal winds at high latitudes on Venus: An improved application of cyclostrophic balance to Venus Express observations’, 2011, Volume 217, Issue 2, p. 629-639, Icarus
 

Other Planets

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References:

– Read P., Barstow J., Charnay B., Chelvaniththilan S., Irwin G., Knigth S., Lebonnois S., Lewis S., Mendonca J., Montabone L., ‘Global energy budgets and “Trenberth diagrams” for the climates of terrestrial and gas giant planets’, 2016, Accepted, Quaterly Journal of the Royal Meteorological Society

High-Resolution Spectroscopy

…

References:

– Bello-Arufe A., Cabot S., Mendonca J., Buchhave L., Rathcke A., ‘Mining the Ultra-Hot Skies of HAT-P-70b: Detection of a Profusion of Neutral and Ionized Species’, 2021, accepted for publication in The Astronomical Journal

Retrieval Model

…

References:

– Lavie B., Mendonca J., Mordasini C., Malik M., Bonnefoy, Demory B., Oreshenko M., Grimm S., Ehrenreich D. and Heng K., ‘HELIOS-RETRIEVAL: An Open-Source, Nested Sampling Atmospheric Retrieval Code, Application to the HR 8799 Exoplanets and Inferred Constraints for Planet Formation’, 2017, Volume 154, Issue 3, The Astrophysical Journal