Zonal jets as transport barriers in planetary atmospheres

Details Zonal jets as transport barriers in planetary atmospheres Zonal jets as transport barriers in planetary atmospheres

Dec 2007

adsabs.harvard.edu/cgi-bin/nph-data_query?bibcode=2007agufm.p51a0202b&link_type=abstract

American Geophysical Union, Fall Meeting 2007, abstract #P51A-0202

Physics

0343 Planetary Atmospheres (5210, 5405, 5704)

Scientific paper

Recent theoretical and numerical work has shown that a stable - and apparently preferred - mean flow pattern at midlatitudes on rapidly rotating large planets is a sequence of alternating narrow eastward and broad westward zonal jets. The corresponding potential vorticity (PV) distribution is characterized by a PV-staircase with PV-steps at the latitudes of the cores of the eastward jets. Numerically simulated solutions to the quasigeostrophic equation in a perturbed PV-staircase flow are presented. These simulations reveal that both eastward and westward zonal jets serve as robust meridional transport barriers. A theoretical explanation of the underlying barrier mechanism is provided. Consistent with these results, observations of Jupiter, whose weather layer mean flow pattern has the qualitative features of a PV-staircase flow, suggest that both eastward and westward zonal jets serve as robust meridional transport barriers. An alternative explanation of the mechanism by which zonal jets act as meridional barriers, based on the notion of a PV-barrier, correctly predicts that eastward jets act as transport barriers but incorrectly predicts that westward jets do not.

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