Planetary waves in Jupiter's equatorial atmosphere

Abstract

Planetary-scale waves which have been latitudinally trapped within the equatorial jet of Jupiter are attested to by Voyager IR, radio occultation, and imaging data. An effort is presently made to identify a distinguishing class of planetary wave modes in the course of interpreting these data, with special attention being given to the equatorial plume features observed. A comparative evaluation of horizontal dispersion properties for linear wave modes on an equatorial beta plane suggests that the Rossby modes with a meridional structure index of 1 and an equivalent depth of 2-4 km are the interpretation most nearly consistent with all of the observational data for an equatorially trapped, wavenumber 12 pattern.