Evidence for Multiple Ferrel-Like Cells on Jupiter
- 1Weizmann institute of science, Earth and planetary sciences, Rehovot, Israel (kerenduer89@gmail.com)
- 2School of Physics and Astronomy, University of Leicester, University Road, Leicester, LE1 7RH, UK
- 3Universitié Côte d'Azur, OCA, Lagrange CNRS, 06304 Nice, France
- 4Southwest Research Institute, San Antonio, Texas, TX, USA
- 5Jet Propulsion Laboratory, California Institute of Technology, 4800 Oak Grove Drive, Pasadena, CA 91109, USA
- 6Department of Climate and Space Sciences and Engineering, University of Michigan, Ann Arbor, MI, USA
- 7Istituto di Astrofisica e Planetologia Spaziali, INAF, Rome, Italy
- 8California Institute of Technology, Pasadena, California, USA
- 9University of Houston, Houston, TX, USA
- 10Department of Astronomy, Cornell University, Ithaca, New York 14853, USA
Jupiter’s atmosphere is governed by multiple jet streams, which are strongly tied to its three-dimensional atmospheric circulation. Lacking a solid surface, several theories exist for how the meridional circulation extends into the interior. Here we show, collecting evidence from multiple instruments of the Juno mission, the existence of mid-latitudinal, turbulent driven, meridional circulation cells, similar to the Ferrel cells on Earth. Different than Earth, which contains only one such cell in each hemisphere, Jupiter can incorporate multiple cells due to its large size and fast spin. The cells form regions of upwelling and downwelling, which we show are clearly evident in Juno’s MWR data between latitudes 60S and 60N. The existence of these cells is confirmed by reproducing the ammonia observations using an advection-relaxation model. This study solves a long-standing puzzle regarding the nature of Jupiter’s sub-cloud dynamics and provides evidence for 8 cells in each Jovian hemisphere.
How to cite: Duer, K., Gavriel, N., Galanti, E., Kaspi, Y., Fletcher, L., Guillot, T., Bolton, S., Levin, S., Atreya, S., Grassi, D., Ingersoll, A., Li, C., Li, L., Lunine, J., Orton, G., Oyafuso, F., and Waite, H.: Evidence for Multiple Ferrel-Like Cells on Jupiter, EGU General Assembly 2022, Vienna, Austria, 23–27 May 2022, EGU22-9155, https://doi.org/10.5194/egusphere-egu22-9155, 2022.
