Magnetic Ekman Layers, Hurricanes, and Moist Convection on the Giant Planets

Details Magnetic Ekman Layers, Hurricanes, and Moist Convection on the Giant Planets Magnetic Ekman Layers, Hurricanes, and Moist Convection on the Giant Planets

Oct 2007

adsabs.harvard.edu/cgi-bin/nph-data_query?bibcode=2007dps....39.5511i&link_type=abstract

American Astronomical Society, DPS meeting #39, #55.11; Bulletin of the American Astronomical Society, Vol. 39, p.528

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Scientific paper

Although giant planets do not have solid surfaces, they do have Ekman layers. The electrical conductivity increases exponentially with depth until the hydrogen becomes metallic, so there is a layer in the semi-conducting zone where the Lorentz force is comparable to the Coriolis force, although both will be small if the velocity is small. In this layer, the Lorentz force plays the role that friction plays in an ordinary Ekman layer, leading to convergence and upwelling in a low and divergence and downwelling in a high. In meteorology the effect is called Ekman pumping and is important in terrestrial hurricanes: The low pressure in the center drives moist inflow in the boundary layer, and the resulting upward flow around the eye releases latent heat and powers the storm. A structure with hurricane-like features exists at Saturn's south pole (Dyudina et al., BAAS, 2007). At other latitudes on both Jupiter and Saturn the cyclonic belts are the low pressure features. Upwelling there is consistent with lightning and other evidence of moist convection (Little et al., Icarus, 1999; Porco et al., Science, 2003). As in a terrestrial hurricane, the outflow from the belts takes place at high altitudes where friction with the underlying layers puts angular momentum back into the outflowing air. Moist convective towers provide the friction, so the outflow layer is near the top of the water cloud. On the giant planets, this is below the level of ammonia condensation, which explains the puzzling observation that the vertical velocity in the belts is downward at the level of the ammonia cloud and is presumably upward at the level of the water cloud, since moist convection is occurring there (Gierasch et al., Nature, 2000; Ingersoll et al., Nature, 2000).

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