Eddy-driven jets and vortices in convectively forced geostrophic turbulence in the laboratory: implications for atmospheric circulations on giant planets?
Abstract
We present here new results from large-scale laboratory experiments on forced-dissipative geostrophic turbulence in a large rotating tank. This provides an environment in which small-scale turbulence can interact with background rotation and other factors to produce rectified jets and a banded circulation, somewhat akin to what is observed on gas giant planets such as Jupiter and Saturn. We investigate the underlying dynamics and compare with observations of the cloud-level circulations on Jupiter and Saturn. In particular, the eddy-mean flow interaction is found to be strongly time-dependent, which may have important implications for understanding and measuring the kinetic energy conversion rates in the gas giants.
- Publication:
-
EPSC-DPS Joint Meeting 2011
- Pub Date:
- October 2011
- Bibcode:
- 2011epsc.conf.1074R