Jupiter's Tropospheric Thermal Emission. II. Power Spectrum Analysis and Wave Search

We study power spectra and search for planetary waves in images of Jupiter's cloud opacity. The observation wavelength of 4.9 μm senses thermal emission from the ∼5-bar level; overlying clouds attenuate the emission. Our companion paper (J. Harrington, T. E. Dowling, and R. L. Baron, 1996,Icarus124, 22-31) describes 19 nights of observations (6 with 360° longitude coverage) and new reduction techniques. Atmospheric seeing limits resolution to ∼2500 km. Zonal power spectral density at planetary wavenumbers higher than ∼25 follows a power law in the wavenumber. Eastward jet-power laws average -2.71 ± 0.07 and westward jet-power laws, excluding cloud-obscured regions, average -3.14 ± 0.12. Wavenumbers 1-24 roughly follow power laws near -0.7 for both jet directions, but with many superposed discrete features. The meridional spectrum similarly breaks around wavenumber 25, with power law trends of -0.36 and -3.27. However, a pattern of undulations is superposed over its linear trends.

L. D. Travis (1978,J. Atmos. Sci.35, 1584-1595) established an empirical correspondence between power spectra of atmospheric kinetic energy and those of cloud opacities for the Earth and analyzed Venus cloud data under this assumption. We do the same for Jupiter. If the Rossby deformation radius,L_d, were an energy input scale, as baroclinic instability theory predicts, one would expect energy and enstrophy cascades (power laws of -5/3 and -3, respectively) on opposite sides of the wavenumber corresponding toL_d. If the top of our high-wavenumber power law isL_d, its value is ∼2100 km at 45° latitude.

Our spectra show persistent features with phases moving linearly over the 99-day observation period. Some of these can be identified with periodic features such as vortex chains and the equatorial plumes. The origin of others is less certain. We present a table of our best wave candidates.