Related papers: Ocean dynamics of outer solar system satellites
Semidiurnal atmospheric thermal tides are important for terrestrial exoplanets in the habitable zone of their host stars. With solid tides, they torque these planets, thus contributing to determine their rotation states as well as their…
All planets and stars rotate. All gas planets in our solar system, the Sun, and many stars show a pattern of east- or westward mean flows. This phenomenon is known as differential rotation in the stellar and as zonal jets in the planetary…
We extend earlier models of turbulent dynamos with an upper, nearly force-free exterior to spherical geometry, and study how flux emerges from lower layers to the upper ones without being driven by magnetic buoyancy. We also study how this…
The Hadley circulation describes a planetary-scale tropical atmospheric flow, which has a major influence on climate. Contemporary theoretical understanding is based upon angular momentum conservation, the basic dynamical constraint…
One the major factors determining the development and evolution of atmospheric convection is the sea surface temperature and its variability. Results of this thesis show that state of atmospheric convection impacts the diurnal distribution…
The form of the solar meridional circulation is a very important ingredient for mean field flux transport dynamo models. Yet a shroud of mystery still surrounds this large-scale flow, given that its measurement using current helioseismic…
Atmosphere and ocean are coupled via air-sea interactions. The atmospheric conditions fuel the ocean circulation and its variability, but the extent to which ocean processes can affect the atmosphere at decadal time scales remains unclear.…
We investigate the characteristics of equatorial waves associated with the maintenance of superrotation in the stratosphere of a Titan general circulation model. A variety of equatorial waves are present in the model atmosphere, including…
The observed surface dynamics of Jupiter and Saturn is dominated by a banded system of zonal winds. Their depth remains unclear but they are thought to be confined to the very outer envelopes where hydrogen remains molecular and the…
To explore the physics of large-scale flows in solar-like stars, we perform 3D anelastic simulations of rotating convection for global models with stratification resembling the solar interior. The numerical method is based on an implicit…
The equilibrium rotation rate of a planet is determined by the sum of torques acting on its solid body. For planets with atmospheres, the dominant torques are usually the gravitational tide, which acts to slow the planet's rotation rate,…
The fluid dynamics in planet Saturn gives rise to alternating east-west jet streams, large cyclonic and anticyclonic vortices, and a dipole-dominant magnetic field which is highly axisymmetric about the planetary rotation axis. Modelling…
Bathed in intense ionizing radiation, close-in gaseous planets undergo hydrodynamic atmospheric escape, which ejects the upper extent of their atmospheres into the interplanetary medium. Ultraviolet detections of escaping gas around…
Terrestrial exoplanets in the canonical habitable zone may have a variety of initial water fractions due to random volatile delivery by planetesimals. If the total planetary water complement is high, the entire surface may be covered in…
Earth-like planets in the habitable zone of low-mass stars undergo strong tidal effects that modify their spin states. These planets are expected to host dense atmospheres that can also play an important role in the spin evolution. On one…
A series of numerical simulations of the dynamo process operating inside gas giant planets has been performed. We use an anelastic, fully nonlinear, three-dimensional, benchmarked MHD code to evolve the flow, entropy and magnetic field. Our…
A magma ocean is expected to exist on the dayside of tide-locked planets if surface temperature exceeds the melting temperature of typical crust. As highly prioritized targets for the James Webb Space Telescope (JWST), more information…
It has been suggested that the ice shell of Jupiter's moon Europa may drift non-synchronously due to tidal torques. Here we argue that torques applied by the underlying ocean are also important and can result in non-synchronous rotation…
Ocean surface waves can propagate long distances through regions containing floating ice covers. The impacts ocean waves have on the ice covers are of interest in the climate change era, as the polar regions experience pressure from rising…
We analyze simulation results from the TitanWRF global circulation model to understand the mechanisms that maintain the equatorial superrotation in Titan's stratosphere. We find that the eddies associated with wave activities can transport…