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Thermal structure and dynamics of Saturn and Jupiter

Abstract

High resolution Voyager IRIS measurements for Saturn and Jupiter are assembled in meridional cross-sections of the retrieved upper tropospheric temperatures. The calculated thermal wind shear in the upper troposphere is highly correlated on both planets with the cloud top winds derived from imaging data. In contrast, temperatures below 300 mbar are not simply related to the zonal jet structure. The upper tropospheric temperatures seem to have been more consistently correlated with cloud top winds than with major albedo features at the time of the Voyager encounters.

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Pirraglia, J., Conrath, B., Allison, M. et al. Thermal structure and dynamics of Saturn and Jupiter. Nature 292, 677–679 (1981). https://doi.org/10.1038/292677a0

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