Long-term Cycles of Variability of Jupiter's Atmosphere from Ground-based Infrared Observations

Jupiter's atmosphere displays some of the most dramatic weather of any planet in our Solar System, with cycles of activity changing the upper tropospheric and stratospheric temperatures, aerosols, and cloud structures through physical processes that are not yet well understood. Here we use almost 40 years (more than 3 jovian years) of ground-based infrared observations captured at NASA's Infrared Telescope Facility (IRTF), the Very Large Telescope (VLT) and Subaru between 1980 and 2019 in a number of filters spanning from 7.9 to 24.5 µm (sampling upper tropospheric and stratospheric temperatures and aerosols via collision-induced hydrogen and helium absorption, and emission from stratospheric hydrocarbons), to (i) understand the impact of the tropospheric activity on the periodicity of the stratospheric temperature oscillations, (ii) characterize the long-term variability of Jupiter's atmosphere at different altitudes in the upper troposphere and stratosphere, and (iii) investigate the long-term thermal, chemical and aerosol changes in Jupiter's troposphere. In particular, we generate Lomb-Scargle periodograms and apply a Wavelet Transform analysis to our dataset to look for potential periodicities on the brightness temperature variability in different filters and compare them to previously reported cyclic activity at visible wavelengths (sensing the ammonia cloud top at ~500 mbar) and 5 µm (sensing the 1-4 bar pressure level). Finally, a Principal Component Analyses (PCA) is also performed to analyse the correlation of the brightness temperature variations at different belts and zones.