Turbulence without cascades — new insights from Jupiter’s unearthly jets

Michael Edgeworth McIntyre

In Turbulence, Waves and Mixing: In Honour of Lord Julian Hunt's 75th Birthday, ed. S.G. Sajjadi and H.J. Fernando (2016). Inst. Maths. Applics., ISBN 978-0-905091-35-8, pp. 124-127. Reprint available here.


This short paper discusses the fact that one can have turbulence, in the sense of chaotic vortex motion, without an upscale or downscale cascade of energy. My student Stephen I. Thomson and I encountered this situation in our work to model the ‘unearthly’ jet system on the planet Jupiter, the straightness of the jets making them very unlike the meandering jets in the Earth’s atmosphere and oceans thanks to the very different conditions on Jupiter.


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Michael Edgeworth McIntyre (mem at damtp.cam.ac.uk), postal address 98 Windsor Road, Cambridge CB4 3JN, UK.

This page first posted 29 March 2024; last updated 29 March 2024
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