Research on jet streams on giant planets
The following movies show numerical simulations of
the shallow-water equations performed using the EPIC code. The goal is to
test how thunderstorm turbulence affects the large-scale circulation
on Jupiter and Saturn. In each case, small, localized mass pulses are added
to the layer to represent mass transported by thunderstorms from Jupiter's
deep atmosphere into its cloud layer. Radiation removes mass evenly from the
layer, allowing a steady state to be achieved. Most of the movies below
show layer thickness; some show potential vorticity.
A case 120 degrees longitude x 70 degrees latitude, resolution 512 x 298.
Storms have radius of 0.7 degrees, time constant of 1e5 sec, and are
injected every once 0.6 Earth days. Movie runs for 4200 Earth days of
simulated time and contains over 2200 frames (spacing between frames nearly
2 Earth days).
shallow-water55 height optimized gifsicle
version
convert LZW compression
relative vorticity
horizontal divergence
potential vorticity
