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Published August 16, 2017 | Published + Supplemental Material + Accepted Version
Journal Article Open

Implications of the ammonia distribution on Jupiter from 1 to 100 bars as measured by the Juno microwave radiometer

Abstract

The latitude-altitude map of ammonia mixing ratio shows an ammonia-rich zone at 0–5°N, with mixing ratios of 320–340 ppm, extending from 40–60 bars up to the ammonia cloud base at 0.7 bars. Ammonia-poor air occupies a belt from 5–20°N. We argue that downdrafts as well as updrafts are needed in the 0–5°N zone to balance the upward ammonia flux. Outside the 0–20°N region, the belt-zone signature is weaker. At latitudes out to ±40°, there is an ammonia-rich layer from cloud base down to 2 bars that we argue is caused by falling precipitation. Below, there is an ammonia-poor layer with a minimum at 6 bars. Unanswered questions include how the ammonia-poor layer is maintained, why the belt-zone structure is barely evident in the ammonia distribution outside 0–20°N, and how the internal heat is transported through the ammonia-poor layer to the ammonia cloud base.

Additional Information

© 2017 American Geophysical Union. Received 23 MAY 2017; Accepted 17 JUL 2017; Accepted article online 25 JUL 2017; Published online 5 AUG 2017. The work described in this paper was partly conducted at the Jet Propulsion Laboratory (JPL), California Institute of Technology, under contract with the National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA). API was supported in part by the US National Science Foundation (NSF grant 1411952). CL was supported by a NASA Earth and Space Science Fellowship and by the NASA Postdoctoral Fellowship Program. Other authors acknowledge support from the Juno Project of NASA. Juno/MWR data can be accessed on the Planetary Data System (PDS) at https://pds.nasa.gov/.

Attached Files

Published - Ingersoll_et_al-2017-Geophysical_Research_Letters.pdf

Accepted Version - nihms-1508410.pdf

Supplemental Material - grl56217-sup-0001-2017GL074277_S1.docx

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Additional details

Created:
August 21, 2023
Modified:
October 26, 2023