Physics – Fluid Dynamics
Scientific paper
Nov 1998
adsabs.harvard.edu/cgi-bin/nph-data_query?bibcode=1998aps..dfd..fc05y&link_type=abstract
American Physical Society, Division of Fluid Dynamics Meeting, November 22-24, 1998 Philadelphia, PA, abstract #FC.05
Physics
Fluid Dynamics
Scientific paper
The Great Red Spot (GRS) of Jupiter consists of a high speed ring of fluid moving circumferentially about a quiet interior. The vorticity as well as the potential vorticity (pv) have local minima at the center of the vortex. While the north-south (n-s) velocity along the east-west (e-w) centerline of the vortex may be small at the center of the vortex, it is difficult to have small e-w velocities at the center of the vortex along a n-s centerline, since the total veloctity is a superposition of the velocity due to the vortex and the velocity of the e-w jets that circle the planet. Allowing the gradient of background pv to deform around the GRS permits the vortex to have small velocities at the center in the n-s as well as the e-w directions. This is a stable, statistically-steady flow when a Rayleigh friction with time scale τ is included and when the vortex is forced by mergers with small-area, large-pv vortices. Since the pv of the small vortices (as well as the pv of the entire GRS) decays with time, the region of largest pv is the location where the pv has most recently attached itself to the GRS, the outer edge of the vortex. This process creates a stable "hollow" vortex for suitable values of density, creation rate, size, and strength of the small-area vortices, the Rossby deformation radius, and τ.
Marcus Philip S.
Youssef Ashraf
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