Simulations of High-Latitude Vortices in the Atmosphere of Jupiter

Details Simulations of High-Latitude Vortices in the Atmosphere of Jupiter Simulations of High-Latitude Vortices in the Atmosphere of Jupiter

May 2004

adsabs.harvard.edu/cgi-bin/nph-data_query?bibcode=2004agusmsa41a..01m&link_type=abstract

American Geophysical Union, Spring Meeting 2004, abstract #SA41A-01

Physics

5707 Atmospheres: Structure And Dynamics, 6220 Jupiter

Scientific paper

Jupiter's atmosphere as a function of latitude consists of persistent, alternating anticyclonic and cyclonic domains. Interestingly, all the anticyclonic domains contain conspicuous, long-lived anticyclones that drift zonally at speeds that are intermediate between the domain's alternating currents. The largest and oldest is the Great Red Spot (GRS) at 22° S, which has a minor axis greater than 12,000 km and an age measured in centuries, and the next largest and oldest are the White Oval Spots (WOS) at 33° S, which numbered three for over six decades but have recently merged into a single vortex that covers about 50% the area of the GRS. The amplitude and structure of the wind fields associated with the GRS and WOS have been well sampled with Earth-based and spacecraft observations. We are interested in both how the vortices are constructed and to what extent their dynamics tells us about the environment they reside in, especially the vertical structure of the atmosphere. Theories of the nonlinear stability of vortices indicate that different balances may hold for large versus small anticyclones, but unfortunately, this is difficult to test directly because we do not yet have good observations of the structure inside Jupiter's many smaller vortices. However, we can begin to reduce the possibilities of their interior structure and their environment with forward modeling. Here, we use the EPIC atmospheric model to study Jupiter's anticyclonic domain centered at 60° N, which contains two relatively large anticyclones with minor axes of ~5,000 km that have persisted for over ten years. The bulk dynamics of these two vortices is well constrained by observations, for example they are known to often merge with smaller vortices that have minor axes ~3,000 km. We find that for plausible temperature and wind profiles, their interactions mainly depend on the amplitude of their interior wind field, such that we can use the observations to constrain their structure. We present these results and discuss the relationship we have found between the strength of the vortices and their size and latitudinal position. This research is funded by NASA's Planetary Atmospheres and EPSCoR Programs.

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