LINEAR ANALYSIS ON THE ACCELERATION OF ZONAL FLOW BY BAROCLINIC INSTABILITY. PART II: JOVIAN ATMOSPHERE.

The stability analysis of wave-zonal flow interaction which was developed in Part I is applied to the Jovian atmosphere. The analysis uses a two-layer, quasi-geostrophic model on a midlatitude beta-plane. The physical data input to the model, e. g. , the meridional temperature gradient, is provided by recent Pioneer and Voyager missions. The results indicate that planetary waves generated by baroclinic instability near the Jovian cloud-top level may be responsible for the observed multiple zonal jets whose velocity changes sign with latitude. The results support findings which showed that multiple jet formation is possible on a beta-plane if the transition wavenumber k// beta (Rhines) takes on certain values based on the barotropic nature of the basic flow. However, it is shown here that the meridional scale of the alternating jets is closely tied to a functional relationship involving the baroclinic deformation scale and a turbulence closure approximation.