What is it about?
This article discusses Jupiter's many jet streams and great storms, including similarities and differences with Earth's atmosphere and oceans. The differences between anticyclones (highs) and cyclones (lows) are explained, and the theory of shear stability is applied to Jupiter's jet streams.
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Why is it important?
Understanding Earth's ocean circulations is critical to understanding climate change, and comparative planetology with Jupiter is a powerful tool for learning about the nonlinear fluid dynamics. For example, it is helping us uncover what keeps vortices swirling for years on Jupiter and in Earth's oceans, instead of just weeks like in Earth's atmosphere.
Perspectives
This concise encyclopedia article came out in 1997, the year I joined the University of Louisville. It is interesting that the Galileo Probe data were still being analyzed at the time of this writing.
Professor Timothy E. Dowling
University of Louisville
Read the Original
This page is a summary of: Jupiter: Atmosphere, Springer Science + Business Media,
DOI: 10.1007/1-4020-4520-4_202.
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