Related papers: Ocean dynamics of outer solar system satellites
The role of water ice in the solar system is reviewed from a fluid-dynamical point of view. On Earth and Mars, water ice forms ice sheets, ice caps and glaciers at the surface, which show glacial flow under their own weight. By contrast,…
We survey the basic principles of atmospheric dynamics relevant to explaining existing and future observations of exoplanets, both gas giant and terrestrial. Given the paucity of data on exoplanet atmospheres, our approach is to emphasize…
The recent discoveries of terrestrial exoplanets and super-Earths extending over a broad range of orbital and physical parameters suggest that these planets will span a wide range of climatic regimes. Characterization of the atmospheres of…
The North Atlantic Ocean circulation, fuelled by winds and surface buoyancy fluxes, carries 1.25 PettaWatts of heat poleward in the subtropics, and helps in regulating global weather and climate patterns. Here, we assess the relative…
During recent decades, data from space missions have provided strong evidence of deep liquid oceans underneath a thin outer icy crust on several moons of Jupiter, particularly Europa. But these observations have also raised many unanswered…
In close two-body astrophysical systems, such as binary stars or Hot Jupiter systems, tidal interactions often drive dynamical evolution on secular timescales. Many host stars and presumably giant gaseous planets feature a convective…
Zonal flows in rapidly-rotating celestial objects such as the Sun, gas or ice giants form in a variety of surface patterns and amplitudes. Whereas the differential rotation on the Sun, Jupiter and Saturn features a super-rotating equatorial…
The surface zonal winds observed in the giant planets form a complex jet pattern with alternating prograde and retrograde direction. While the main equatorial band is prograde on the gas giants, both ice giants have a pronounced retrograde…
The extraordinary activity at Enceladus' warm south pole indicates the presence of an internal global or local reservoir of liquid water beneath the surface. While Tyler (2009, 2011) has suggested that the geological activity and the large…
To date, analyses of magnetic induction in putative oceans in Jupiter's large icy moons have assumed uniform conductivity in the modeled oceans. However, the phase and amplitude response of the induced fields will be influenced by the…
Saturn possesses a dynamically rich system containing numerous moons and impressive rings. Whether the rings of Saturn are much younger than the planet itself has been a long-open question; more recently a young age has been proposed for…
On tidally locked lava planets, magma ocean can form on the permanent dayside. The circulation of the magma ocean can be driven by stellar radiation and atmospheric winds. The strength of ocean circulation and the depth of the magma ocean…
The surface winds of Jupiter and Saturn are primarily zonal. Each planet exhibits strong prograde equatorial flow flanked by multiple alternating zonal winds at higher latitudes. The depth to which these flows penetrate has long been…
The intense turbulence present in the solar convection zone is a major challenge to both theory and simulation as one tries to understand the origins of the striking differential rotation profile with radius and latitude that has been…
Atmospheric tides can have a strong impact on the rotational dynamics of planets. They are of most importance for terrestrial planets located in the habitable zone of their host star, where their competition with solid tides is likely to…
Rotation in planetary atmospheres plays an important role in regulating atmospheric and oceanic heat flow, cloud formation and precipitation. Using the Goddard Institute for Space Studies (GISS) three dimension General Circulation Model…
Clouds on Titan result from the condensation of methane and ethane and, as on other planets, are primarily structured by circulation of the atmosphere. At present, cloud activity mainly occurs in the southern (summer) hemisphere, arising…
The present study investigates how global thermodynamic properties of the climate system are affected by the changes in the intensity of the imposed oceanic heat transport in an atmospheric general circulation model in aqua-planet…
The formation and orbital evolution of Saturn's inner mid-sized moons are still debated. The most puzzling aspects are 1) how the Tethys-Dione pair and the Mimas-Enceladus pair passed through their strong 3:2 mean-motion resonances during…
We use a linear shallow-water model to investigate the global circulation of the atmospheres of tidally locked planets. Simulations, observations, and simple models show that if these planets are sufficiently rapidly rotating, their…