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Common 0.1 bar Tropopause in Thick Atmospheres Set by Pressure-Dependent Infrared Transparency

A minimum atmospheric temperature, or tropopause, occurs at a pressure of around 0.1 bar in the atmospheres of Earth, Titan, Jupiter, Saturn, Uranus and Neptune, despite great differences in atmospheric composition, gravity, internal heat and sunlight. In all these bodies, the tropopause separates a stratosphere with a temperature profile that is controlled by the absorption of shortwave solar radiation, from a region below characterised by convection, weather, and clouds. However, it is not obvious why the tropopause occurs at the specific pressure near 0.1 bar. Here we use a physically-based model to demonstrate that, at atmospheric pressures lower than 0.1 bar, transparency to thermal radiation allows shortwave heating to dominate, creating a stratosphere. At higher pressures, atmospheres become opaque to thermal radiation, causing temperatures to increase with depth and convection to ensue. A common dependence of infrared opacity on pressure, arising from the shared physics of molecular absorption, sets the 0.1 bar tropopause. We hypothesize that a tropopause at a pressure of approximately 0.1 bar is characteristic of many thick atmospheres, including exoplanets and exomoons in our galaxy and beyond. Judicious use of this rule could help constrain the atmospheric structure, and thus the surface environments and habitability, of exoplanets.