DPS Meeting, Madison, October 1998
Session 30P. Jupiter I
Contributed Poster Session, Wednesday, October 14, 1998, 5:10-6:10pm, Hall of Ideas

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[30P.10] Approach to a Global Mapping of the Jovian wind circulation above the clouds

Manuel de la Torre Ju\'arez (J.P.L. / N.R.C.), Brendan L. Fischer (J.P.L. / Caltech)

Measuring the jovian circulation and its temperature distributions remains an open problem. The clouds screen observations of the structure underneath while haze distributions above them introduce uncertainties in the interpretation of some data. Infrarred observations keep providing a very reliable tool at hand to get global temperature and circulation mappings.

Global Infrarred maps covering uniformly the Jovian upper troposphere were retrieved for different wavelengths. The data obtained provide a uniform mapping of the planet's temperature distribution at several pressure levels above the clouds. This allows to extend previous progress from other groups using Voyager measurements and step from zonal averages into a full picture of the Jovian upper tropospheric circulations. The balance models assumed between temperature and wind are the same as in the works on Voyager data, but geostrophic balance is implemented observing the spherical geometry in order to map geostrophic effects also at the equatorial regions. Within the caution due to the assumptions and errors involved, this map may provide a very complete approach to the real circulation above the clouds.


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