Outline of the setup. We introduce a rocky core and simulate the protoplanetary atmosphere in a local frame, while we keep the conditions of the circumstellar disk constant in time. The planetary core accumulates gas to form an atmosphere. In addition to polar inflow, the two horseshoe orbits that form along the orbital direction of the planet constantly exchange high-entropy circumstellar with low-entropy atmospheric gas. This process results in thermodynamic equilibrium in which radiative cooling is fully compensated for by atmosphere-disk recycling. We thank André Oliva for drawing this sketch.