Long-term tracking of circumpolar cyclones on Jupiter from polar observations with JunoCam

Tabataba‐Vakili, Fachreddin; Rogers, J. H.; Eichstädt, Gerald; Orton, Glenn S.; Hansen, C. J.; Momary, T.; Sinclair, James; Giles, Rohini; Caplinger, M. A.; Ravine, M. A.; Bolton, S. J.

doi:10.1016/j.icarus.2019.113405

Cited by 43 publications

(42 citation statements)

References 47 publications

Supporting

Mentioning

Contrasting

Order By: Relevance

“…The simulation is A B C for the northern hemisphere, so the cyclones spin counterclockwise. The cyclones are identical to each other and have dimensions and speeds taken from observation (4,5). The value of b is 1.5, in agreement with our estimate based on the observations in Fig.…”

Section: Significancesupporting

confidence: 88%

“…In other words, the cyclonic vortices are "shielded." Shielding may explain the slow rotation (1.5°westward) of the structure as a whole during the 53 d of one orbit (5).…”

mentioning

confidence: 99%

“…JunoCam is restricted to the sunlit side of the planet. The vortices last from one orbit to the next, 53 d later (5), so a visible-light mosaic of the entire polar region can be constructed from several orbital passes. JIRAM is sensitive to thermal emission from the planet and can view the entire pole during a single orbital pass.…”

mentioning

confidence: 99%

See 2 more Smart Citations

Modeling the stability of polygonal patterns of vortices at the poles of Jupiter as revealed by the Juno spacecraft

Ingersoll

Klipfel

et al. 2020

Proc. Natl. Acad. Sci. U.S.A.

View full text Add to dashboard Cite

From its pole-to-pole orbit, the Juno spacecraft discovered arrays of cyclonic vortices in polygonal patterns around the poles of Jupiter. In the north, there are eight vortices around a central vortex, and in the south there are five. The patterns and the individual vortices that define them have been stable since August 2016. The azimuthal velocity profile vs. radius has been measured, but vertical structure is unknown. Here, we ask, what repulsive mechanism prevents the vortices from merging, given that cyclones drift poleward in atmospheres of rotating planets like Earth? What atmospheric properties distinguish Jupiter from Saturn, which has only one cyclone at each pole? We model the vortices using the shallow water equations, which describe a single layer of fluid that moves horizontally and has a free surface that moves up and down in response to fluid convergence and divergence. We find that the stability of the pattern depends mostly on shielding—an anticyclonic ring around each cyclone, but also on the depth. Too little shielding and small depth lead to merging and loss of the polygonal pattern. Too much shielding causes the cyclonic and anticyclonic parts of the vortices to fly apart. The stable polygons exist in between. Why Jupiter’s vortices occupy this middle range is unknown. The budget—how the vortices appear and disappear—is also unknown, since no changes, except for an intruder that visited the south pole briefly, have occurred at either pole since Juno arrived at Jupiter in 2016.

show abstract

Section: Significancesupporting

confidence: 88%

“…In other words, the cyclonic vortices are "shielded." Shielding may explain the slow rotation (1.5°westward) of the structure as a whole during the 53 d of one orbit (5).…”

mentioning

confidence: 99%

See 1 more Smart Citation

Modeling the stability of polygonal patterns of vortices at the poles of Jupiter as revealed by the Juno spacecraft

Ingersoll

Klipfel

et al. 2020

Proc. Natl. Acad. Sci. U.S.A.

View full text Add to dashboard Cite

show abstract

“…1995; Jin & Dubin 2000; Jiménez & Guegan 2007), and beautiful examples of equilibrium vortex polygons have been observed in the polar regions of planetary atmospheres (Tabataba-Vakilia et al. 2020). Most known equilibrium systems are regular arrangements of vortices of a single sign in a background of opposite-sign vorticity, but mixed-sign stable systems are also known.…”

Section: Collective Structuresmentioning

confidence: 99%

Dipoles and streams in two-dimensional turbulence

Jiménez

2020

J. Fluid Mech.

View full text Add to dashboard Cite

show abstract

“…It might be argued that the real Jupiter is somewhere between these two extremes, with recent Juno observations revealing polar regions with significant vortices present, much like in Figure a, but also including highly organised vortex crystals centred on the pole (Adriani et al ., ; Tabataba‐Vakili et al . ) with a symmetry more reminiscent of that in Figure . Neither of the model configurations in Figure shows such crystalline vortex structures, but it remains a possibility that some of the symmetry in Jupiter's polar regions has a deep origin, much like in Figure b, with a possible moist‐convective origin for regions of cyclones (O'Neill et al ., ).…”

Section: Results Of Numerical Experimentsmentioning

confidence: 82%

The influence of deep jets on Jupiter's weather layer in a 1.5‐layer shallow‐water model

Thomson

2020

Quart J Royal Meteoro Soc

View full text Add to dashboard Cite

The depth of the jet streams seen in Jupiter's outer weather layer has long been debated, with alternative suggestions of confinement to the weather layer and extensions deep into the planet being considered. Interpretation of measurements from NASA's Juno probe have suggested that weather‐layer jets do extend deep into the planet, down to depths of 𝒪 (3,000 km). However, this relies on the assumption that the jet profile does not change its spatial structure with depth, which may not be the case. In this work, we consider a simple 1.5‐layer shallow‐water model of Jupiter‐like jet streams, with prescribed deep jets in the lower layer, and look at the parameters affecting the strength of the coupling between the layers. We find the value of the Rossby deformation scale, L D, to be particularly important, not just in setting the magnitude of variations in layer depth, but also in dictating the effectiveness of radiative damping. We also find the radiative damping timescales, the energy injection rate, and the spacing of deep jets to be important. We combine these findings into our best‐guess simulations of the real Jupiter and find that low latitudes are relatively uncoupled between the layers, with high latitudes being more tightly coupled. These effects can be tied to the smallness of Jupiter's L D and the effectiveness of radiative damping as a coupling mechanism. These simulations do, however, produce equatorial subrotation and eddy‐momentum fluxes unlike those on the real planet. It may be, therefore, that spatially varying forcing and very long radiative damping timescales are required for this model to be more Jupiter‐like.

show abstract

Long-term tracking of circumpolar cyclones on Jupiter from polar observations with JunoCam

Cited by 43 publications

References 47 publications

Modeling the stability of polygonal patterns of vortices at the poles of Jupiter as revealed by the Juno spacecraft

Modeling the stability of polygonal patterns of vortices at the poles of Jupiter as revealed by the Juno spacecraft

Dipoles and streams in two-dimensional turbulence

The influence of deep jets on Jupiter's weather layer in a 1.5‐layer shallow‐water model

Contact Info

Product

Resources

About