MPS: Jupiter's Whirlwinds - Turning the Other Way

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bystander
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MPS: Jupiter's Whirlwinds - Turning the Other Way

Post by bystander » Mon Nov 30, 2015 9:50 pm

Jupiter's Whirlwinds: Turning the Other Way
Max Planck Institute for Solar System Research | 2015 Nov 30

Computer simulations explain the location of Jupiter’s impressive atmospheric whirlwinds – and why their direction of rotation is opposite to storms on Earth.
[img3="Comparison of an image of Jupiter and the new computer simulations. The image (left) shows Jupiter’s clouds patterned by strong winds. East- and westward wind bands produce the colored stripes. Anti-cyclonic whirlwinds are recognizable as brighter spots in the lower part of the image. With a diameter of 16,000 kilometers, the Great Red Spot is the largest whirlwind in our solar system. In the computer simulation (right) anti-cyclonic winds are shown in blue, cyclonic winds in red. The cyclonic rings are also visible as darker rings in the Jupiter image (left).
(Credit: NASA/JPL-Caltech/University of Alberta/MPS)
"]http://www.mps.mpg.de/4366986/standard_sans_both.jpg[/img3][hr][/hr]
The numerous whirlwinds covering Jupiter are caused by upward gas flows originating deep within the giant planet. This is the conclusion reached by scientists at the University of Alberta (Canada) and the Max Planck Institute for Solar Research (MPS) in Germany after extensive computer simulations. The ascending flows are deflected in higher-lying, stable gas layers and swirled by the Coriolis force. For the first time, the new model succeeds to simulate that Jupiter-whirlwinds occur predominantly in wide bands north and south of the equator. There, the Great Red Spot can be found, a giant anticyclone in the planet’s atmosphere that has been stable for centuries. The model also explains why Jupiter’s storms rotate in the opposite direction from those on Earth. The researchers report their results today in the journal Nature Geoscience.

The atmosphere of gas giant Jupiter is a turbulent place. Broad east- and westbound jet streams drive clouds of frozen ammonia grains around the planet at speeds of 550 kilometers per hour. Other regions are dominated by huge, long-lived whirlwinds. The largest of these is the Great Red Spot, a giant anticyclone, which measures up to two times Earth's diameter and has existed for at least 350 years. Until now, how exactly these weather phenomena originate, could not be explained comprehensively.

Jupiter’s whirlwinds rotate opposite to the rotation of the planet, i.e. clockwise on the northern and anti-clockwise on the southern hemisphere. On Earth hurricanes rotate in the opposite sense. How Jupiter's storms are formed and why they are so different from those on Earth has long been controversial. "Our high-resolution computer simulation now shows that an interaction between the movements in the deep interior of the planet and an outer stable layer is crucial," sums up Johannes Wicht from the MPS. ...

Simulation of Deep-Seated Zonal Jets and Shallow Vortices in Gas Giant Atmospheres - Moritz Heimpel et al
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neufer
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Re: MPS: Jupiter's Whirlwinds - Turning the Other Way

Post by neufer » Tue Dec 01, 2015 5:57 pm

But the tops of Earth storms rotate in the anticyclonic direction too :!:
Art Neuendorffer

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