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K. Sugiyama, M. Odaka, K. Kuramoto, Y.-Y. Hayashi (Division of Earth and Planetary Sciences, Hokkaido Univ.)
Dependency of static stability of the cloud layeres on the abundance of condensable elements for the Jovian atmospheres is considered by calculating moist adiabatic lapse rate. Optimal minimization method of Gibbs free energy is utilized to obtain equilibrium compositions for given temperature, pressure, and basic elements. An advantage of this method is that no chemical reaction formula has to be specified, which means that it is suitable for a parameter study in which a wide variety of elemental abundance is given.
Our calculation shows that CH4 is the most dominant contributor in producing a stable layer in the Uranian atmosphere. For the H2O cloud layer of the Jovian atmosphere, the proportional relationship between static stability and H2O abundance, which is assumed by Ingersoll and Kanamori (1995) to explain the phase velocity of the SL9 impact wave, is not valid when the H2O abundan ce increases more than several times the solar abundance. The value of static stability approaches a constant value as H2O abundance increases. The reason is that the value of moist adiabatic lapse rate has an upper limit defined for an atmosphere composed only of H2O. The corresponding upper limit of static stability is too small to explain the phase velocity of the SL9 impact wave as that of an internal gravity wave.
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Bulletin of the American Astronomical Society, 37 #3
© 2004. The American Astronomical Soceity.