KT2

Giant planet upper atmospheres are the intervening regions between planetary weather layers below and their space environments above. As a result of their exceptionally rarefied nature, they are highly sensitive probes of the forcing exerted from below and above. In this Keynote talk I will introduce and discuss some of the latest results related to giant planet upper atmospheres. I will highlight topics such as the giant planet "energy crisis", a decades-old
problem in which the (non-auroral) upper atmospheres of all giant planets have been measured hundreds of Kelvin warmer than expected, and how Saturn's upper atmosphere is revealing the decay of its ring system into the planet.