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Modeling convection and zonal winds in giant planets

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  01 August 2006

Martha Evonuk  and
Gary A. Glatzmaier
Martha Evonuk
Affiliation:
Institut für Geophysik, ETH Hoengg, 8093 Zürich, Switzerland email: [email protected]
Gary A. Glatzmaier
Affiliation:
Department of Earth and Planetary Sciences, University of California, Santa Cruz 1156 High Street, Santa Cruz, CA 95064, USA email: [email protected]
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Abstract

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Three basic modeling approaches have been used to numerically simulate fluid turbulence and the banded zonal winds in the interiors and atmospheres of giant planets: shallow-water models, deep-shell Boussinesq models and deep-shell anelastic models. We review these models and discuss the approximations and assumptions upon which they are based. All three can produce banded zonal wind patterns at the surface. However, shallow-water models produce a retrograde (i.e., westward) zonal jet in the equatorial region, whereas strong prograde (i.e., eastward) equatorial jets exist on Jupiter and Saturn. Deep-shell Boussinesq models maintain prograde equatorial jets by the classic method of vortex stretching of convective columnar flows; however, they neglect the effects of the large density stratification in these giant planets. Deep-shell anelastic models account for density stratification and maintain prograde equatorial jets by generating vorticity as rising fluid expands and sinking fluid contracts, without the constraint of long thin convective columns.

Keywords

Planets and satellites: generalJupiterSaturnstars: interiors
Type
Contributed Papers
Information
Proceedings of the International Astronomical Union , Volume 2 , Symposium S239: Convection in Astrophysics , August 2006 , pp. 177 - 187
Copyright
Copyright © International Astronomical Union 2007

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