Reconciling Jupiter’s vertical motions with the observed cloud structure in the upper troposphere

Abstract

The eddy fluxes of angular momentum in Jupiter’s upper troposphere are known to converge in prograde jets and diverge in retrograde jets. Away from the equator, this implies convergence of the Eulerian mean meridional flow in zones (anticyclonic shear) and divergence in belts (cyclonic shear). It indicates lower-tropospheric downwelling in zones and upwelling in belts because the mean meridional circulation almost certainly closes at depth. Yet the observed banded structure of Jupiter’s clouds and hazes suggests that there is upwelling in the brighter zones and downwelling in the darker belts. Here, we show that this apparent contradiction can be resolved by considering not the Eulerian but the transformed Eulerian mean circulation, which includes a Stokes drift owing to eddies and is a better approximation of the Lagrangian mean transport of tracers such as ammonia. The potential vorticity structure inferred from observations paired with mixing length arguments suggests that there is transformed Eulerian mean upwelling in zones and downwelling in belts. Simulations with a global circulation model of Jupiter’s upper atmosphere demonstrate the plausibility of these inferences and allow us to speculate on the band structure at deeper levels.