Physics
Scientific paper
Dec 2010
adsabs.harvard.edu/cgi-bin/nph-data_query?bibcode=2010agufm.p33b1575c&link_type=abstract
American Geophysical Union, Fall Meeting 2010, abstract #P33B-1575
Physics
[6221] Planetary Sciences: Solar System Objects / Europa
Scientific paper
Observations from the Galileo and Cassini spacecraft suggest that subsurface global water oceans are likely present on multiple icy satellites of Jupiter and Saturn. Tyler (2008), using a 2-D linear shallow-water model, suggests that strong ocean flows may be driven in these satellites by an obliquity tide. We have numerically simulated the 3D circulation of a hypothetical Europan ocean driven solely by the obliquity tide. To first order, the shallow-water approximation provides a solution similar to the long-wavelength part of the obliquity flow pattern seen in our numerical simulations with comparable energies, but with somewhat larger horizontal velocities. However, our preliminary results indicate that the 3-D flows are quite sensitive to the applied boundary condition at the upper water-ice interface. For a fixed spherical no-slip boundary condition, the resulting horizontal velocities are small everywhere. However, for a spherical stress-free boundary condition, the resulting flow velocities are a couple orders of magnitude greater, of order cm/s (similar to the shallow-water results). A boundary condition that more naturally allows for the time-dependent aspherical deformation of the water-ice interface also affects the pattern and amplitude of the circulation. Whereas the shallow-water approximation might be appropriate for purely obliquity-forced circulation, thermal convection likely plays a significant role in determining the pattern and amplitude of the circulation of icy satellite oceans, and as such, the flows may be more three-dimensional than those presented here.
Chen E. M.
Glatzmaier Gary A.
Nimmo Francis
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