Moeckel Chris, Ge Huazhi, de Pater Imke
Department of Earth and Planetary Science, University of California, Berkeley, Berkeley, CA 94720, USA.
Division of Geological and Planetary Sciences, California Institute of Technology, Pasadena, CA 91125, USA.
Sci Adv. 2025 Mar 28;11(13):eado9779. doi: 10.1126/sciadv.ado9779.
Storms are emerging as key drivers in shaping hydrogen-dominated atmospheres. Trace gas condensation can suppress convection and disrupt the distribution of energy and material in hydrogen atmospheres. On Jupiter, the presence of water has been invoked to control the occurrence of large-scale storms; however, the impact of storms on the ammonia and temperature distribution is unknown. We use Juno Microwave Radiometer observations of a large-scale storm in 2017 to study the aftermath of such a storm on the atmosphere. Anomalies in the retrieved ammonia abundance and atmospheric temperature show how storms deplete and heat the upper atmosphere while simultaneously depositing material well below the layers they were triggered at. These observations, aided by simulations, show that the water and ammonia cycles are coupled and that their combined effect plays a key role in explaining the depletion of ammonia in the tropospheres of Jupiter and Saturn.
风暴正成为塑造以氢为主的大气的关键驱动因素。痕量气体凝结会抑制对流，并扰乱氢大气中能量和物质的分布。在木星上，水的存在被认为可以控制大规模风暴的发生；然而，风暴对氨和温度分布的影响尚不清楚。我们利用朱诺号微波辐射计对2017年一场大规模风暴的观测来研究此类风暴对大气的后续影响。反演得到的氨丰度和大气温度异常显示了风暴如何消耗并加热高层大气，同时在远低于引发它们的层面沉积物质。这些观测结果在模拟的辅助下表明，水和氨的循环是相互关联 的，它们的综合作用在解释木星和土星对流层中氨的消耗方面起着关键作用。
