- Article
- Published:
Jupiter’s cloud-level variability triggered by torsional oscillations in the interior
- Kumiko Hori ORCID:orcid.org/0000-0001-8293-54991,
- Chris A. Jones ORCID:orcid.org/0000-0002-1105-39202,
- Arrate Antuñano ORCID:orcid.org/0000-0001-9206-69603,
- Leigh N. Fletcher4 &
- …
- Steven M. Tobias2
Nature Astronomyvolume 7, pages825–835 (2023)Cite this article
1005Accesses
339Altmetric
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.
This is a preview of subscription content,access via your institution
Access options
Access Nature and 54 other Nature Portfolio journals
Get Nature+, our best-value online-access subscription
9,800 Yen / 30 days
cancel any time
Subscribe to this journal
Receive 12 digital issues and online access to articles
￥14,900 per year
only ￥1,242 per issue
Prices may be subject to local taxes which are calculated during checkout
Similar content being viewed by others
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 athttps://github.com/ArrateAntunano/IRTF_5micron_data.
References
Rogers, J. H.The Giant Planet Jupiter (Cambridge Univ. Press, 1995).
Fletcher, L. N. Cycles of activity in the Jovian atmosphere.Geophys. Res. Lett.44, 4725–4729 (2017).
Stoker, C. R. Moist convection: a mechanism for producing the vertical structure of the Jovian equatorial plumes.Icarus67, 106–125 (1986).
Gierasch, P. J. et al. Observation of moist convection in Jupiter’s atmosphere.Nature403, 628–630 (2000).
Gillett, F. C., Low, F. J. & Stein, W. A. The 2.8-14-micron spectrum of Jupiter.Astrophys. J.157, 925–934 (1969).
Westphal, J. A. Observations of localized 5-micron radiation from Jupiter.Astrophys. J.157, L63–L64 (1969).
Giles, R. S., Fletcher, L. N. & Irwin, P. G. J. Cloud structure and composition of Jupiter’s troposphere from 5-μm Cassini VIMS spectroscopy.Icarus257, 457–470 (2015).
Bjoraker, G. L., Wong, M. H., de Pater, I. & Ádámkovics, M. Jupiter’s deep cloud structure revealed using Keck observations of spectrally resolved line shapes.Astrophys. J.810, 122 (2015).
West, R. A. et al. inJupiter: The Planet, Satellites and Magnetosphere (eds Bagenal, F., Dowling, T. E. & McKinnon, W. B.) 79–104 (Cambridge Univ. Press, 2004).
Antuñano, A. et al. Infrared characterization of Jupiter’s equatorial disturbance cycle.Geophys. Res. Lett.45, 10987–10995 (2018).
Antuñano, A. et al. Jupiter’s atmospheric variability from long-term ground-based observations at 5 μm.Astron. J.158, 130 (2019).
Braginsky, S. I. Torsional magnetohydrodynamic vibrations in the Earth’s core and variations in day length.Geomag. Aeron.10, 3–12 (1970).
Hori, K., Teed, R. J. & Jones, C. A. Anelastic torsional oscillations in Jupiter’s metallic hydrogen region.Earth Planet. Sci. Lett.519, 50–60 (2019).
Connerney, J. E. P. et al. A new model of Jupiter’s magnetic field at the completion of Juno’s prime mission.J. Geophys. Res. Planets127, e2021JE007055 (2022).
French, M. et al. Ab initio simulations for material properties along the Jupiter adiabat.Astrophys. J. Suppl. Ser.202, 5 (2012).
Tsang, Y.-K. & Jones, C. A. Characterising Jupiter’s dynamo radius using its magnetic energy spectrum.Earth Planet. Sci. Lett.530, 115879 (2020).
Moore, K. M. et al. A complex dynamo inferred from the hemispheric dichotomy of Jupiter’s magnetic field.Nature561, 76–78 (2018).
Teed, R. J., Jones, C. A. & Tobias, S. M. The transition to Earth-like torsional oscillations in magnetoconvection simulations.Earth Planet. Sci. Lett.419, 22–31 (2015).
Tollefson, J. et al. Changes in Jupiter’s zonal wind profile preceding and during the Juno mission.Icarus296, 163–178 (2017).
Wong, M. H. et al. High-resolution UV/optical/IR imaging of Jupiter in 2016–2019.Astrophys. J. Suppl. Ser.247, 58 (2020).
Kaspi, Y. et al. Jupiter’s atmospheric jet streams extend thousands of kilometres deep.Nature555, 223–226 (2018).
Galanti, E. & Kaspi, Y. Combined magnetic and gravity measurements probe the deep zonal flows of the gas giants.Mon. Not. R. Astron. Soc.501, 2352–2362 (2021).
Moore, K. M. et al. Time variation of Jupiter’s internal magnetic field consistent with zonal wind advection.Nat. Astron.3, 730–735 (2019).
Bloxham, J. et al. Differential rotation in Jupiter’s interior revealed by simultaneous inversion for the magnetic field and zonal flux velocity.J. Geophys. Res. Planets127, e2021JE007138 (2022).
Jin, T.-C., Wu, J.-Z., Zhang, Y.-Z., Liu, Y.-L. & Zhou, Q. Shear-induced modulation of convection over rough plates.J. Fluid Mech.936, A28 (2022).
Showman, A. P., Kaspi, Y. & Flierl, G. R. Scaling laws for convection and jet speeds in giant planets.Icarus211, 1258–1273 (2011).
Aurnou, J. M., Horn, S. & Julien, K. Connections between nonrotating, slowly rotating, and rapidly rotating turbulent convective transport scalings.Phys. Rev. Res2, 043115 (2015).
Hueso, R. & Sánchez-Lavega, A. A three-dimensional model of moist convection for the giant planets: the Jupiter case.Icarus151, 257–274 (2001).
Sugiyama, K. et al. Intermittent cumulonimbus activity breaking the three-layer cloud structure of Jupiter.Geophys. Res. Lett.38, L13201 (2011).
Debras, F. & Chabrier, G. New models of Jupiter in the context of Juno and Galileo.Astrophys. J.872, 100 (2019).
Gastine, T. & Wicht, J. Stable stratification promotes multiple zonal jets in a turbulent Jovian dynamo model.Icarus368, 114514 (2021).
Orton, G. S. et al. Unexpected long-term variability in Jupiter’s tropospheric temperatures.Nat. Astron.7, 190–197 (2023).
Schmid, P. J. Dynamic mode decomposition of numerical and experimental data.J. Fluid Mech.656, 5–28 (2010).
Rowley, C. W., Mezić, I., Bagheri, S., Schlatter, P. & Henningson, D. S. Spectral analysis of nonlinear flows.J. Fluid Mech.641, 115–127 (2009).
Tu, J. H., Rowley, C. W. & Luchtenburg, D. M. On dynamic mode decomposition: theory and applications.J. Comput. Dyn.1, 391–421 (2014).
Kutz, J. N., Brunton, S. L., Brunton, B. W. & Proctor, J. L.Dynamic Mode Decomposition: Data-Driven Modeling of Complex Systems (SIAM, 2016).
Gillet, N., Jault, D., Canet, E. & Fournier, A. Fast torsional waves and strong magnetic field within the Earth’s core.Nature465, 74–77 (2010).
Higgins, C. A., Carr, T. D. & Reyes, F. A new determination of Jupiter’s radio rotation period.Geophys. Res. Lett.23, 2653–2656 (1996).
Gaulme, P., Schmider, F.-X., Gay, J., Guillot, T. & Jacob, C. Detection of Jovian seismic waves: a new probe of its interior structure.Astron. Astrophys.531, A104 (2011).
Glatzmaier, G. A. Computer simulations of Jupiter’s deep internal dynamics help interpret what Juno sees.Proc. Nat. Acad. Sci.115, 6896–6904 (2018).
Wahl, S. M. et al. Comparing Jupiter interior structure models to Juno gravity measurements and the role of a dilute core.Geophys. Res. Lett.44, 4649–4659 (2017).
Stevenson, D. J. Jupiter’s interior as revealed by Juno.Annu. Rev. Earth Planet. Sci.48, 465–489 (2020).
Pontin, C. M., Barker, A. J., Hollerbach, R., André, Q. & Mathis, S. Wave propagation in semiconvective regions of giant planets.Mon. Not. R. Astron. Soc.493, 5788–5806 (2020).
Roberts, P. H. & Aurnou, J. M. On the theory of core-mantle coupling.Geophys. Astrophys. Fluid Dyn.106, 157–230 (2012).
Connerney, J. E. P. et al. A new model of Jupiter’s magnetic field from Juno’s first nine orbits.Geophys. Res. Lett.45, 2590–2596 (2018).
Scargle, J. D. Studies in astronomical time series analysis. II. Statistical aspects of spectral analysis of unevenly spaced data.Astrophys. J263, 835–853 (1982).
Avila, A. M. & Mezić, I. Data-driven analysis and forecasting o f highway traffic dynamics.Nat. Commun.11, 2090 (2020).
Hori, K., Tobias, S. M. & Teed, R. J. Dynamic mode decomposition to retrieve torsional Alfvén waves. InProceedings of the Japan Society of Fluid Mechanics Annual Meeting 2020. Preprint athttps://doi.org/10.48550/arXiv.2009.13095 (2020).
Jovanović, M. R., Schmid, P. J. & Nichols, J. W. Sparsity-promoting dynamic mode decomposition.Phys. Fluids26, 024103 (2014).
Gavish, M. & Donoho, D. L. The optimal hard threshold for singular values is\(4/\sqrt{3}\).IEEE Trans. Inf. Theory60, 5040–5053 (2014).
Gillet, N., Jault, D. & Canet, E. Excitation of travelling torsional normal modes in an Earth’s core model.Geophys. J. Int.210, 1503–1516 (2017).
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.
Author information
Authors and Affiliations
Graduate School of System Informatics, Kobe University, Kobe, Japan
Kumiko Hori
Department of Applied Mathematics, University of Leeds, Leeds, UK
Chris A. Jones & Steven M. Tobias
Departamento Física Aplicada, Escuela de Ingeniería de Bilbao, Universidad del País Vasco UPV/EHU, Leioa, Spain
Arrate Antuñano
School of Physics and Astronomy, University of Leicester, Leicester, UK
Leigh N. Fletcher
- Kumiko Hori
You can also search for this author inPubMed Google Scholar
- Chris A. Jones
You can also search for this author inPubMed Google Scholar
- Arrate Antuñano
You can also search for this author inPubMed Google Scholar
- Leigh N. Fletcher
You can also search for this author inPubMed Google Scholar
- Steven M. Tobias
You can also search for this author inPubMed Google Scholar
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.
Corresponding author
Correspondence toKumiko Hori.
Ethics declarations
Competing interests
The authors declare no competing interests.
Peer review
Peer review information
Nature Astronomy thanks Nicolas Gillet and the other, anonymous, reviewer(s) for their contribution to the peer review of this work.
Additional information
Publisher’s note Springer Nature remains neutral with regard to jurisdictional claims in published maps and institutional affiliations.
Supplementary information
Supplementary Information
Supplementary Figs. 1–5 and Tables 1–5.
Rights and permissions
Springer Nature or its licensor (e.g. a society or other partner) holds exclusive rights to this article under a publishing agreement with the author(s) or other rightsholder(s); author self-archiving of the accepted manuscript version of this article is solely governed by the terms of such publishing agreement and applicable law.
About this article
Cite this article
Hori, K., Jones, C.A., Antuñano, A.et al. Jupiter’s cloud-level variability triggered by torsional oscillations in the interior.Nat Astron7, 825–835 (2023). https://doi.org/10.1038/s41550-023-01967-1
Received:
Accepted:
Published:
Issue Date:
Share this article
Anyone you share the following link with will be able to read this content:
Sorry, a shareable link is not currently available for this article.
Provided by the Springer Nature SharedIt content-sharing initiative
This article is cited by
A rapidly time-varying equatorial jet in Jupiter’s deep interior
- Jeremy Bloxham
- Hao Cao
- Scott J. Bolton
Nature (2024)
The deep winds of Jupiter
- Chris A. Jones
Nature Astronomy (2023)
