Kristen Menou et al 2003 ApJ 587 L113 doi:10.1086/375015
Kristen Menou1,2,3, James Y-K. Cho4,5, Sara Seager5 and Bradley M. S. Hansen6
Show affiliationsShallow-water numerical simulations show that the atmospheric circulation of the close-in extrasolar giant planet (EGP) HD 209458b is characterized by moving circumpolar vortices and few bands/jets (in contrast to ~10 bands/jets and the absence of polar vortices on cloud-top Jupiter and Saturn). The large spatial scales of moving circulation structures on HD 209458b may generate detectable variability of the planet's atmospheric signatures. In this Letter, we generalize these results to other close-in EGPs, by noting that shallow-water dynamics is essentially specified by the values of the Rossby (Ro) and Burger (Bu) dimensionless numbers. The range of likely values of Ro (~10-2 to 10) and Bu (~1-200) for the atmospheric flow of known close-in EGPs indicates that their circulation should be qualitatively similar to that of HD 209458b. This results mostly from the slow rotation of these tidally synchronized planets.
planetary systems; planets and satellites: general; stars: atmospheres; turbulence
Issue 2 (2003 April 20)
Received 2002 August 30, accepted for publication 2003 February 28
Published 2003 March 20
Kristen Menou et al 2003 ApJ 587 L113
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