Dr Michael Roman

Dr. Michael Roman is a planetary atmospheric scientist and a leading expert on the atmospheres of the Solar System's Ice Giants–Uranus and Neptune.

 

 

Dr. Roman's research seeks to characterize planetary atmospheres, ranging from observational studies of the outer Solar System to theoretical modelling of exoplanet atmospheres. He is a leading expert on the science of the Solar System's Ice Giants, which are among the most intriguing and least explored bodies in planetary science. His research applies methods of radiative transfer and numerical modelling to observational data in order to understand how aerosols, dynamical circulations, and seasonal forcing shape the observable properties of varied atmospheres.

Research interests include:

• The atmospheres of the Giant Planets (particularly Uranus and Neptune) and how they vary over time
• Radiative transfer modelling of planetary spectra
• General Circulation Modelling (GCM) of exoplanet atmospheres
• Remote sensing and modelling clouds and hazes

Over 30 journal publications and numerous presentations spanning planetary and exoplanetary science. For full details and more timely updates, see ORCiD and Google Scholar

Recent highlights:
• Roman, M.T.,"Mid-Infrared Observations of the Giant Planets" Invited Review, Remote Sensing, 15(7), p.1811. 2023

• Roman, M.T., Fletcher, L.N., Orton, G.S., Moses, J.I., Greathouse, T., Rowe-Gurney N, Irwin P.G., de Pater, I., "Sub-Seasonal Variation in Neptune’s Mid-Infrared Emission from Ground Based Imaging" The Planetary Science Journal 3.4: 78., 2022

• Roman, M.T., Kempton, E.M.R., Rauscher E., Harada, C.K., Bean, J.L., Stevenson, K. "Clouds in Three-Dimensional Models of Hot Jupiters Over a Wide Range of Temperatures I: Thermal Structures and Broadband Phase Curve Predictions" The Astrophysical Journal, 908 101, 2021

• Roman, M.T., Fletcher, L.N., Orton, G., Rowe-Gurney, N., Irwin, P.J., "Uranus in Northern Mid-Spring: Persistent Atmospheric Temperatures and Circulations Inferred from Thermal Imaging." The Astronomical Journal, 159 (2), 45, 2020

 

Fuller list:
• Taylor J. Bell, Nicolas Crouzet, Patricio E. Cubillos, Laura Kreidberg, Anjali A. A. Piette, Michael T. Roman, Joanna K. Barstow, et al., "Nightside clouds and disequilibrium chemistry on the hot Jupiter WASP-43b". Submitted to Nature.
• Isaac Malsky, Emily Rauscher, Michael T. Roman, Elspeth K. H. Lee, Hayley Beltz, Arjun Savel, Eliza M.-R. Kempton, and L. Cinque. "A Direct Comparison between the use of Double Gray and Multiwavelength Radiative Transfer in a General Circulation Model with and without Radiatively Active Clouds" Submitted to AAS Journals.
• Henrik Melin, J. O’Donoghue, L. Moore, T. S. Stallard, Leigh Fletcher, Michael Roman, J. Harkett, O. King, E. Thomas, et al., "Ionospheric disturbances at Jupiter observed by JWST" Submitted to Nature Astronomy.
• Patrick G. J. Irwin, Jack Dobinson, Arjuna James, Michael H. Wong, Leigh N. Fletcher, Michael T. Roman, Nicholas A. Teanby, et al.,"Cloud Structure of Dark Spots and Storms in Neptune’s Atmosphere" Accepted by Nature Astronomy.
• Gao, P., Piette, A.A., Steinrueck, M.E., Nixon, M.C., Zhang, M., Kempton, E.M., Bean, J.L., Rauscher, E., Parmentier, V., Batalha, N.E. and Savel, A.B., "The Hazy and Metal-Rich Atmosphere of GJ 1214 b Constrained by Near and Mid-Infrared Transmission Spectroscopy." arXiv preprint arXiv:2305.05697. 2023.
• Kempton, E.M.R., Zhang, M., Bean, J.L., Steinrueck, M.E., Piette, A.A., Parmentier, V., Malsky, I., Roman, M.T., Rauscher, E., Gao, P. and Bell, T.J., "A reflective, metal-rich atmosphere for GJ 1214b from its JWST phase curve." Nature, pp.1-2. 2023
• JWST Transiting Exoplanet Community Early Release Science Team. Identification of carbon dioxide in an exoplanet atmosphere. Nature 614, 649–652 (2023). https://doi.org/10.1038/s41586-022-05269-w
• M.T. Roman, "Mid-Infrared Observations of the Giant Planets" Invited Review, Remote Sensing, 15(7), p.1811. 2023
• Chavez, E., de Pater, I., Redwing, E., Molter, E.M., Roman, M.T., Zorzi, A., Alvarez, C., Campbell, R., de Kleer, K., Hueso, R. and Wong, M.H., "Evolution of neptune at near-infrared wavelengths from 1994 through 2022." Icarus, p.115667. 2023
• J.S.D. Blake, L.N. Fletcher,G.S. Orton, A. Antuñano, M.T. Roman, Y. Kasaba, T. Fujiyoshi, "Saturn’s Seasonal Variability from Four Decades of Ground-Based Mid-Infrared Observations" Icarus, 392, p.115347. 2023
• Murphy, M.M., Beatty, T.G., Roman, M.T., Malsky, I., Wingate, A., Ochs, G., Cinque, L., Beltz, H., Rauscher, E., Kempton, E.M.R. and Stevenson, K.B., "A Lack of Variability between Repeated Spitzer Phase Curves of WASP-43b." The Astronomical Journal, 165(3), p.107. 2023
• P.G.J. Irwin, N.A. Teanby, L.N. Fletcher, D. Toledo, G.S. Orton, M.H. Wong, Roman, M.T., S. Perez-Hoyos, A. James, J. Dobinson, "Hazy blue worlds: A holistic aerosol model for Uranus and Neptune, including Dark Spots," Journal of Geophysical Research: Planets e2022JE007189. 2022
• NW Kutsop, AG Hayes, PM Corlies, S Le Mouélic, JI Lunine, CA Nixon, ... "Titan Stratospheric Haze Bands Observed in Cassini VIMS as Tracers of Meridional Circulation" The Planetary Science Journal 3 (5), 114
• Roman, M.T., Fletcher, L.N., Orton, G.S., Moses, J.I., Greathouse, T., Rowe-Gurney N, Irwin P.G., de Pater, I., "Sub-Seasonal Variation in Neptune’s Mid-Infrared Emission from Ground Based Imaging" The Planetary Science Journal 3.4: 78., 2022
• E. K. H. Lee, J. P. Wardenier, B. Prinoth, V. Parmentier, S. L. Grimm, R. Baeyens, L. Carone, D. Christie, R. Deitrick, D. Kitzmann, N. Mayne, M. Roman, "3D radiative-transfer for exoplanet atmospheres. gCMCRT: a GPU accelerated MCRT code" The Astrophysical Journal 929 (2), 180
• Isaac Malsky, Emily Rauscher, Eliza M. R. Kempton, Michael Roman, Deryl Long, Caleb K. Harada, "Modeling the high-resolution emission spectra of clear and cloudy non-transiting hot Jupiters" The Astrophysical Journal 923 (1), 62
• Hayley Beltz, Emily Rauscher, Michael Roman, Abigail Guilliat, "Exploring the Effects of Active Magnetic Drag in a GCM of the Ultra-Hot Jupiter WASP-76b" The Astrophysical Journal, 163 (1), 35
• Blake, James SD, Leigh N. Fletcher, Thomas K. Greathouse, Glenn S. Orton, Henrik Melin, Mike T. Roman, Arrate Antuñano, Padraig T. Donnelly, Naomi Rowe-Gurney, and Oliver King. "Refining Saturn’s deuterium-hydrogen ratio via IRTF/TEXES spectroscopy." Icarus, 2021
• Rowe-Gurney N, Fletcher L.N., Orton G.S., Roman M.T., Mainzer A., Moses J.I., De Pater I., Irwin P.G., Longitudinal variations in the stratosphere of Uranus from the Spitzer infrared spectrometer. Icarus. 114506 2021
• C. K. Harada, Kempton E.M.-R., Rauscher E., Roman, M.T.,, Malsky I., Brinjikji M., and DiTomasso, V., "Signatures of Clouds in Hot Jupiter Atmospheres: Modeled High-resolution Emission Spectra from 3D General Circulation Models." The Astrophysical Journal 909 85 2021
• Roman, M.T., Kempton, E.M.R., Rauscher E., Harada, C.K., Bean, J.L., Stevenson, K. "Clouds in Three-Dimensional
Models of Hot Jupiters Over a Wide Range of Temperatures I: Thermal Structures and Broadband Phase Curve Predictions" The Astrophysical Journal, 908 101, 2021
• Hueso, R., Sanchez-Lavega, A., Roman, M.T., Dhillon, V., de Pater, I., Fletcher, L.N., Orton, G.S., Simon, A., Wong, M., and others, "Monitoring Neptune’s atmosphere with a combination of small and large telescopes: The role of Spanish Telescopes in a global international campaign" Contributions to the XIV. 0 Scientific Meeting (virtual) of the Spanish Astronomical Society, 2020
• Moses, J.I., Cavalie T., Fletcher, L.N., Roman, M.T., "Atmospheric chemistry on Uranus and Neptune" Philosophical Transactions Vol. 378, No. 2187, December 2020
• Sinclair, J.A., Orton, G.S., Fletcher, LN., Roman, M.T., de Pater, I., Encrenaz, T., Hammel, H.B., Giles, R.S., and Velusamy, T., Moses, J.I., and others, "Spatial structure in Neptune’s 7.90-μm stratospheric CH4 emission, as measured by VLT-VISIR." Icarus, 113748, 2020
• Fletcher, L.N., de Pater, I., and Orton, G.S., Hofstadter, M.D., Irwin, P.G.J., Roman, M.T., and Toledo, D., "Ice Giant Circulation Patterns: Implications for Atmospheric Probes." Space Science Reviews, 216 (2), 1–38, 2020
• Roman, M.T., Fletcher, L.N., Orton, G., Rowe-Gurney, N., Irwin, P.J., "Uranus in Northern Mid-Spring: Persistent Atmospheric Temperatures and Circulations Inferred from Thermal Imaging." The Astronomical Journal, 159 (2), 45, 2020
• Roman, M.T., & Rauscher, E., “Modeled Temperature-dependent Clouds with Radiative Feedback in Hot Jupiter Atmospheres” The Astrophysical Journal, 872(1),1, 2019
• Roman, M.T., & Rauscher, E., “Modeling the effects of inhomogeneous aerosols on the hot Jupiter Kepler-7b’s atmospheric circulation” The Astrophysical Journal, 850(1),17, 2017
• Roman, M.T., Banfield, D., & Gierasch, P.J., “Aerosols and methane in the ice giant atmospheres inferred from spatially resolved, near-infrared spectra: I. Uranus, 2001-2007” Icarus, 2017. doi:10.1016/j.icarus.2017.10.036
• Pasachoff, J.M., Peñaloza-Murillo, M.A., Carter, A.L., & Roman, M.T., “Terrestrial atmospheric responses on Svalbard to the 20 March 2015 Arctic total solar eclipse under extreme conditions" Phil. Trans. R. Soc. A, 374, 20160188, 2016
• Roman, M.T., Banfield, D., & Gierasch, P.J., “Saturn’s cloud structure inferred from Cassini ISS” Icarus, 225, 93-110, 2013
• Roman, M.T., Banfield, D., & Gierasch, P.J., “Determining a tilt in Titan’s north-south albedo asymmetry from Cassini images” Icarus, 203, 242-249, 2009

Fletcher Research Group

Putting Neptune in the News:

Neptune is cooler than we thought: Study reveals unexpected changes in atmospheric temperatures

NPR's Science Friday

Letting exoplanet GJ-1214b shine:
‘Alien weather forecast’ by Leicester scientist provides insight into distant world

BBC

Ph.D. Atmospheric Science, Cornell University 2015
Thesis: “Aerosols and Methane in the Upper Tropospheres of Uranus and Neptune:
An Analysis of Spatially Resolved Near-Infrared Spectra"
(Advisors: Peter Gierasch and Don Banfield)
Minor Fields: Astronomy; Biological and Environmental Engineering

M.S. Atmospheric Science, Cornell University 2012
Thesis: “Saturn’s Cloud Structure Inferred from Cassini ISS"

B.A. Atmospheric Science, Cornell University 2006