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Jupiter’s North Equatorial Belt expansion and thermal wave activity ahead of Juno’s arrival

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journal contribution
posted on 2017-07-31, 15:59 authored by L. N. Fletcher, G. S. Orton, J. A. Sinclair, P. Donnelly, H. Melin, J. H. Rogers, T. K. Greathouse, Y. Kasaba, T. Fujiyoshi, T. M. Sato, J. Fernandes, P. G. J. Irwin, R. S. Giles, A. A. Simon, M. H. Wong, M. Vedovato
The dark colors of Jupiter's North Equatorial Belt (NEB, 7 − 17∘N) appeared to expand northward into the neighboring zone in 2015, consistent with a 3-5 year cycle. Inversions of thermal-IR imaging from the Very Large Telescope revealed a moderate warming and reduction of aerosol opacity at the cloud tops at 17 − 20∘N, suggesting subsidence and drying in the expanded sector. Two new thermal waves were identified during this period: (i) an upper tropospheric thermal wave (wavenumber 16-17, amplitude 2.5 K at 170 mbar) in the mid-NEB that was anti-correlated with haze reflectivity; and (ii) a stratospheric wave (wavenumber 13-14, amplitude 7.3 K at 5 mbar) at 20 − 30∘N. Both were quasi-stationary, confined to regions of eastward zonal flow, and are morphologically similar to waves observed during previous expansion events.

History

Citation

Geophysical Research Letters, 2017, 44

Author affiliation

/Organisation/COLLEGE OF SCIENCE AND ENGINEERING/Department of Physics and Astronomy

Version

  • AM (Accepted Manuscript)

Published in

Geophysical Research Letters

Publisher

American Geophysical Union, Wiley

issn

0094-8276

eissn

1944-8007

Acceptance date

2017-04-12

Copyright date

2017

Available date

2017-07-31

Publisher version

http://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1002/2017GL073383/abstract

Language

en

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