Response of Jupiter’s upper atmosphere to solar and magnetosphere forcing

Jupiter’s upper atmosphere (mesosphere/thermosphere/ionosphere) is driven primarily by its interaction with the magnetosphere which maps an electric potential into the magnetic polar region and is accompanied by energetic electron precipitation into the upper atmosphere. While the latter significantly contributes towards the ionospheric densities, the former generates westward accelerations at auroral latitudes and a transfer of angular momentum from atmosphere to magnetosphere as well as local Joule heating. In-situ solar heating is insignificant in the upper atmosphere, but the solar ionization plays a key role especially at non-auroral latitudes. Over the past years, we have developed the Jupiter Thermosphere Ionosphere Model (JTIM) (Mueller-Wodarg et al., 2025) to numerically calculate this time-dependent coupling and test the sensitivity of the global atmosphere system to forcing from the magnetosphere interaction. With JTIM, we calculate the global dynamics and redistribution of energy. Most recently, we have updated the JTIM model with more realistic electric potentials from the BATSrU model (Sarkango et al., 2019) and electron impact ionization rates from the Jupiter Auroral Ionosphere Code (JAIC) (Nichols et al., 2026). We will present latest simulations and compare with available observations. Our calculations allow us to better understand the underlying physical processes in this complex system, including the role of coupling with the deeper atmosphere and global distribution and transport of angular momentum as well as variability of the entire system.