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Observation of moist convection in Jupiter's atmosphere

Nature volume 403, pages 628–630 (2000)Cite this article

Abstract

The energy source driving Jupiter's active meteorology is not understood1. There are two main candidates: a poorly understood internal heat source and sunlight. Here we report observations of an active storm system possessing both lightning and condensation of water. The storm has a vertical extent of at least 50 km and a length of about 4,000 km. Previous observations2,3 of lightning on Jupiter have revealed both its frequency of occurrence and its spatial distribution, but they did not permit analysis of the detailed cloud structure and its dynamics. The present observations reveal the storm (on the day side of the planet) at the same location and within just a few hours of a lightning detection (on the night side). We estimate that the total vertical transport of heat by storms like the one observed here is of the same order as the planet's internal heat source. We therefore conclude that moist convection—similar to large clusters of thunderstorm cells on the Earth—is a dominant factor in converting heat flow into kinetic energy in the jovian atmosphere.

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Figure 1: Mapped images of the storm region.
Figure 2: Expanded view of storm with colour coding to bring out deep cloud in red, and sketch of storm structure.

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Acknowledgements

This work has been supported by the NASA Planetary Atmospheres Program and the NASA Galileo Project. A. Hock and O. Othman assisted with map projections and image pointing corrections.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Department of Astronomy, Cornell University, Ithaca, 14853, New York, USA

    P. J. Gierasch, D. Banfield, P. Helfenstein & A. Simon-Miller

  2. Division of Geological and Planetary Sciences, California Institute of Technology, Pasadena, 91125, California, USA

    A. P. Ingersoll & S. P. Ewald

  3. Department of Earth and Space Science, University of California at Los Angeles, Los Angeles, 90025, California, USA

    A. Vasavada

  4. Jet Propulsion Laboratory, California Institute of Technology, Pasadena, 91109, California, USA

    H. H. Breneman & D. A. Senske

Authors
  1. P. J. Gierasch
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  2. A. P. Ingersoll
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  5. P. Helfenstein
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  6. A. Simon-Miller
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  8. H. H. Breneman
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  9. D. A. Senske
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  10. Galileo Imaging Team
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Correspondence to P. J. Gierasch.

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Gierasch, P., Ingersoll, A., Banfield, D. et al. Observation of moist convection in Jupiter's atmosphere. Nature 403, 628–630 (2000). https://doi.org/10.1038/35001017

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