On the interaction of Jupiter's Great Red Spot and zonal jet streams

dc.creatorShetty, Sushil
dc.creatorAsay-Davis, Xylar S.
dc.creatorMarcus, Philip S.
dc.date2007-07-29
dc.date2007-09-26
dc.date.accessioned2026-07-07T08:53:23Z
dc.date.available2026-07-07T08:53:23Z
dc.descriptionIn this paper, Jupiter's Great Red Spot (GRS) is used to determine properties of the Jovian atmosphere that cannot otherwise be found. These properties include the potential vorticity of the GRS and its neighboring jet streams, the shear imposed on the GRS by the jet streams, and the vertical entropy gradient (i.e., Rossby deformation radius). The cloud cover of the GRS, which is often used to define the GRS's area and aspect ratio, is found to differ significantly from the region of the GRS's potential vorticity anomaly. The westward-going jet stream to the north of the GRS and the eastward-going jet stream to its south are each found to have a large potential vorticity ``jump''. The jumps have opposite sign and as a consequence of their interaction with the GRS, the shear imposed on the GRS is reduced. The east-west to north-south aspect ratio of the GRS's potential vorticity anomaly depends on the ratio of the imposed shear to the strength of the anomaly. The aspect ratio is found to be $\approx$2:1, but without the opposing jumps it would be much greater. The GRS's high-speed collar and quiescent interior require that the potential vorticity in the interior be approximately half that in the collar. No other persistent geophysical vortex has a significant minimum of potential vorticity in its interior and laboratory vortices with such a minimum are unstable.
dc.descriptionManuscript accepted to Journal of the Atmospheric Sciences, March 2007. v2: minor stylistic changes (after journal proof reading)
dc.identifierhttps://arxiv.org/abs/0707.4193
dc.identifierhttp://arxiv.org/abs/0707.4193
dc.identifierJournal of Atmospheric Sciences, 2007, Vol. 64, pg. 4432_4444
dc.identifierdoi:10.1175/2007JAS2097.1
dc.identifier.urihttp://salesiana.dossiersoluciones.com/handle/123456789/145606
dc.subjectFluid Dynamics
dc.subjectAtmospheric and Oceanic Physics
dc.titleOn the interaction of Jupiter's Great Red Spot and zonal jet streams
dc.typetext

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