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Laboratory simulation of Jupiter's Great Red Spot - Nature

  • ️Swinney, Harry L.
  • ️Thu Feb 25 1988
  • Letter
  • Published: 25 February 1988

Nature volume 331, pages 689–693 (1988)Cite this article

Abstract

Isolated large stable vortices have long been observed in the jovian atmosphere and more recently on Saturn. The existence of such stable vortices in strongly turbulent planetary atmospheres is a challenging problem in fluid mechanics. In a numerical simulation Marcus1 found that a single stable vortex developed for a wide variety of conditions in a turbulent shear flow in a rotating annulus. To test this we conducted an experiment on a rotating annulus filled with fluid pumped in the radial direction. The annulus rotates rigidly (there is no differential rotation), but the action of the Coriolis force on the radially pumped fluid produces a counter-rotating jet. Coherent vortices spontaneously form in this turbulent jet, and for a wide range of rotation and pumping rates the flow evolves until only one large vortex remains.

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Author information

Authors and Affiliations

  1. Center for Nonlinear Dynamics and the Department of Physics, The University of Texas, Austin, Texas, 78712, USA

    Jöel Sommeria, Steven D. Meyers & Harry L. Swinney

  2. Madylam, ENSHMG, BP 95, 38402, St Martin D'Heres Cedex, France

    Jöel Sommeria

Authors

  1. Jöel Sommeria

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  2. Steven D. Meyers

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  3. Harry L. Swinney

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Sommeria, J., Meyers, S. & Swinney, H. Laboratory simulation of Jupiter's Great Red Spot. Nature 331, 689–693 (1988). https://doi.org/10.1038/331689a0

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  • Received: 16 June 1987

  • Accepted: 11 December 1987

  • Issue Date: 25 February 1988

  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1038/331689a0