Non-Hydrostatic Modeling Jupiter's Cloud Formation and Tropospheric Dynamics in the Juno Era

The nature of Jupiter's tropospheric dynamics is elusive because it is difficult to peer through the thick cloud layers and retrieve information about the deep atmosphere. Recently, Juno MWR revealed the spatial distribution of NH₃ from 0.7 bar to 200 bars (Bolton et al. 2017; Li et al. 2017). VLT observations (e.g., Giles et al. 2016) showed latitudinal distributions of heavy tracers (e.g., PH₃, GeH_4, and AsH₃). These measurements greatly challenge the current understandings of Jupiter's tropospheric dynamics. The high-resolution images from JunoCam (Hansen et al. 2017) and previous spacecraft observations (e.g., Gierasch et al. 2000) suggested that the general circulation on Jupiter might be driven by strong moist convection, but previously published hydrostatic models (e.g., Lian & Showman 2010; Liu & Schneider 2010; Palotai & Dowling 2008) are not able to simulate the atmospheric convection directly. Here we developed a non-hydrostatic General Circulation Model (GCM) and Cloud Resolving Model (CRM) for the troposphere of Jupiter from 0.1 bar to 200 bars that include moist convection, tracer transport and cloud physics. First, we will show simulation results of cloud formation in 2D and 3D local CRMs. We show that the formation of H₂O clouds plays an important role in Jupiter's tropospheric dynamics. Moist convection triggered by H₂O cloud formation and latent heat release can vertically transport the heavy tracers (e.g., NH₃) to the upper atmosphere and produce fresh H₂O clouds on the cloud top. Second, we will present the simulation results of the non-hydrostatic GCM with cloud formation. Because the scale of the vertical domain (200 km, from 0.1 bar to 200 bars) in the simulation is much smaller than the planetary circumference (10⁵ km), we implement horizontal-explicit and vertical-implicit scheme to improve the computational efficiency of the GCM. We will also present a benchmark case using the large-scale latent heating scheme in Lian & Showman (2010) to simulate the formation of zonal jets, meridional circulations and tracer transport in Jupiter's troposphere. This project is supported by the NESSF.