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Jupiter’s cloud-level variability triggered by torsional oscillations in the interior

Nature Astronomy volume 7, pages 825–835 (2023)Cite this article

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Abstract

Jupiter’s weather layer exhibits long-term and quasi-periodic cycles of meteorological activity that can completely change the appearance of its belts and zones. There are cycles with intervals from 4 to 9 years, dependent on the latitude, which were detected in 5-μm radiation, which provides a window into the cloud-forming regions of the troposphere; however, the origin of these cycles has been a mystery. Here we propose that magnetic torsional oscillations arising from the dynamo region could modulate the heat transport and hence be ultimately responsible for the variability of the tropospheric banding. These axisymmetric torsional oscillations are magnetohydrodynamic waves influenced by rapid rotation, which have been detected in Earth’s core, and have been recently suggested to exist in Jupiter by the observation of magnetic secular variations by Juno. Using the magnetic field model JRM33, together with a density distribution model, we compute the expected speed of these waves. For the waves excited by variations in the zonal jet flows, their wavelength can be estimated from the width of the alternating jets, yielding waves with a half-period of 3.2–4.7 years at 14–23° N, consistent with the intervals in the cycles of variability of Jupiter’s North Equatorial Belt and North Temperate Belt identified in the visible and infrared observations. The nature of these waves, including the wave speed and the wavelength, is revealed by a data-driven technique, dynamic mode decomposition, applied to the spatiotemporal data for 5-μm emission. Our results indicate that exploration of these magnetohydrodynamic waves may provide a new window to the origins of quasi-periodic patterns in Jupiter’s tropospheric clouds and to the internal dynamics and the dynamo of Jupiter.

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Fig. 1: Torsional oscillation in Jupiter.
Fig. 2: DMD modes of Jupiter’s 5-μm brightness.
Fig. 3: Reconstructed spatiotemporal structures of the DMD modes.

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Data availability

All data are publicly available: the Jupiter magnetic field model JRM33 (ref. 14), the density distribution model15, the zonal wind profile OPAL 2016 (ref. 19) and the 5-μm brightness data11. The images of the brightness and other files used to generate the zonal time series are available at https://github.com/ArrateAntunano/IRTF_5micron_data.

Code availability

The codes used in this study are available upon request. The codes related to the DMD analysis are publicly available36,49.

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Acknowledgements

We are grateful to J. Connerney for supplying us the JRM model and to H. Cao and K. Sugiyama for helpful support. K.H. is supported by the Japan Society for the Promotion of Science under Grant-in-Aid for Scientific Research (C) No 20K04106 and by the Foundation of Kinoshita Memorial Enterprise, Japan. C.A.J. acknowledges support from the UK’s Science and Technology Facilities Council (STFC), STFC research grant ST/S00047X/1. A.A. and L.N.F. were supported by a European Research Council Consolidator Grant under the European Union’s Horizon 2020 research and innovation programme, grant agreement number 723890, at the University of Leicester. A.A. was also supported by the Spanish project PID2019-109467GB-I00 funded by MCIN/AEI/10.13039/50110001103 and by Grupos Gobierno Vasco IT1742-22. S.M.T. was supported by a European Research Council Advanced Grant under the European Union’s Horizon 2020 research and innovation programme (grant agreement D5S-DLV-786780), at the University of Leeds. We would like to thank the Isaac Newton Institute for Mathematical Sciences, Cambridge, for support and hospitality during the programme DYT2 where work on this paper was undertaken. This work was supported by Engineering and Physical Sciences Research Council grant no EP/R014604/1.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Graduate School of System Informatics, Kobe University, Kobe, Japan

    Kumiko Hori

  2. Department of Applied Mathematics, University of Leeds, Leeds, UK

    Chris A. Jones & Steven M. Tobias

  3. Departamento Física Aplicada, Escuela de Ingeniería de Bilbao, Universidad del País Vasco UPV/EHU, Leioa, Spain

    Arrate Antuñano

  4. School of Physics and Astronomy, University of Leicester, Leicester, UK

    Leigh N. Fletcher

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Contributions

K.H. and C.A.J. designed the research, calculated the wave periods, analysed the brightness time series and wrote the article. A.A. and L.N.F. generated the time series data from the infrared images and provided assistance with the analysis and interpretation. S.M.T. provided assistance with the use of the data-driven techniques and the interpretation. All authors read and commented on the manuscript.

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Correspondence to Kumiko Hori.

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Hori, K., Jones, C.A., Antuñano, A. et al. Jupiter’s cloud-level variability triggered by torsional oscillations in the interior. Nat Astron 7, 825–835 (2023). https://doi.org/10.1038/s41550-023-01967-1

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