Laboratory and theoretical models of planetary-scale instabilities and waves

Details Laboratory and theoretical models of planetary-scale instabilities and waves Laboratory and theoretical models of planetary-scale instabilities and waves

Sep 1991

adsabs.harvard.edu/cgi-bin/nph-data_query?bibcode=1991gsap.rept...47h&link_type=abstract

In NASA. Marshall Space Flight Center, NASA/MSFC FY91 Global Scale Atmospheric Processes Research Program Review p 47 (SEE N91-3

Physics

Geophysics

Atmospheric Models, Convective Flow, Electrohydrodynamics, Flow Stability, Fluid Flow, Gas Giant Planets, Mathematical Models, Planetary Waves, Baroclinic Instability, Baroclinic Waves, Convective Heat Transfer, Geophysics, Gravitation, Rotating Liquids, Spacelab, Spherical Shells

Scientific paper

Meteorologists and planetary astronomers interested in large-scale planetary and solar circulations recognize the importance of rotation and stratification in determining the character of these flows. The two outstanding problems of interest are: (1) the origins and nature of chaos in baroclinically unstable flows; and (2) the physical mechanisms responsible for high speed zonal winds and banding on the giant planets. The methods used to study these problems, and the insights gained, are useful in more general atmospheric and climate dynamic settings. Because the planetary curvature or beta-effect is crucial in the large scale nonlinear dynamics, the motions of rotating convecting liquids in spherical shells were studied using electrohydrodynamic polarization forces to generate radial gravity and centrally directed buoyancy forces in the laboratory. The Geophysical Fluid Flow Cell (GFFC) experiments performed on Spacelab 3 in 1985 were analyzed. The interpretation and extension of these results have led to the construction of efficient numerical models of rotating convection with an aim to understand the possible generation of zonal banding on Jupiter and the fate of banana cells in rapidly rotating convection as the heating is made strongly supercritical. Efforts to pose baroclinic wave experiments for future space missions using a modified version of the 1985 instrument have led us to develop theoretical and numerical models of baroclinic instability. Some surprising properties of both these models were discovered.

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