Jupiter's New Red Oval -- Its Relation to Global Changes

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Jupiter now has two red spots. The new spot, the Red Oval, is similar to the Great Red Spot and is Jupiter's second largest storm. The Oval formed in 1998-2000, and was originally white but turned red in 2005. This color change was the first sign of the current jovian upheaval. The current upheaval is intense and rapid. Previous upheavals required at least 3 years for all of their signature changes to unfold, but during the present upheaval, they have all occurred within 11 months. The current upheaval is also unusual because of the formation of two South Equatorial Disturbances (which are rare) and two South Tropical Disturbances (rifts in the cloud patterns, not usually associated with upheavals). Using a new automated procedure, Data Assimilated Correlation Image Velocimetry, we derive the Oval's velocities with unprecedented accuracy from Hubble Space Telescope and Cassini images. These data, coupled with theory, show that neither the velocities nor the relative pressures, temperatures or densities within the Oval changed enough between 2000 and 2005 to account for its color change. Although the dynamics of upheavals and other jovian climate cycles are not well understood, in 2001 we predicted that a large-scale warming north of 34oS, was about to begin, with effects becoming visible in 2006. Currently, no instrument is capable of directly confirming whether the average jovian temperatures changed and therefore we do not know whether a warming was responsible for the current upheaval or for the Oval's new red color. However, we show here that the Oval's color change is consistent with the location, magnitude, and timescale of the predicted temperature change. We show that other proposed explanations for the color change - dredging of red material from deep layers, changes in the Oval's size or velocity, etc. - are not plausible.

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