Jupiter Thermospheric General Circulation Model (JTGCM): Auroral Thermal Balances

Details Jupiter Thermospheric General Circulation Model (JTGCM): Auroral Thermal Balances Jupiter Thermospheric General Circulation Model (JTGCM): Auroral Thermal Balances

May 2009

adsabs.harvard.edu/cgi-bin/nph-data_query?bibcode=2009agusm.p13a..01m&link_type=abstract

American Geophysical Union, Spring Meeting 2009, abstract #P13A-01

Biology

5200 Planetary Sciences: Astrobiology, 5400 Planetary Sciences: Solid Surface Planets, 5700 Planetary Sciences: Fluid Planets, 6000 Planetary Sciences: Comets And Small Bodies, 6200 Planetary Sciences: Solar System Objects

Scientific paper

We use our three-dimensional Jupiter Thermosphere General Circulation Model (JTGCM) to quantify thermal processes that take place in the auroral thermosphere. These processes tend to control the thermal budget in the Jovian ovals and polar caps, and to maintain thermospheric temperatures consistent with those derived from multispectral observations of Jupiter's aurora. The main heat source in the JTGCM that drives the thermospheric flow is high-latitude joule heating resulting from frictional motion of the ions relative to the neutrals. A secondary source of heating that dominates the exospheric region of the Jovian ovals is the auroral process of particle precipitation. Both sources of high-latitude heating in the JTGCM are strongly related to the current system in the outer magnetosphere that allows plasma to flow in and out of the Jovian ionosphere. The mapping of this flow to ionospheric altitudes gives rise to an ion drag process that dominates the neutral momentum forcing near the altitude of the ionospheric peak. We find that the ion drag and joule heating inputs in the JTGCM significantly intensify the underlying global thermospheric circulation, thereby affecting the distribution of the neutral temperature. Global simulations of the Jovian thermospheric dynamics indicate strong neutral outflows from the auroral ovals with velocities up to 1.9 km/s and subsequent convergence and downwelling at the Jovian equator. Such circulation is shown to be an important mechanism for transporting significant amounts of auroral energy to the rest of the planet and for regulating the global heat budget in a manner consistent with temperature observations of Jupiter's oval and polar cap regions. Adiabatic expansion of the neutral atmosphere resulting from outward flows is found to be an important source of cooling the auroral exosphere. The distribution of neutral temperature from 1

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