From NASA’s APOD:
Dark Belt Reappearing on Jupiter
Credit: NASA’s JPL, U. Oxford, UC Berkeley, Gemini Obs. (North), USC Philippines
Explanation: Why are planet-circling clouds disappearing and reappearing on Jupiter? Although the ultimate cause remains unknown, planetary meteorologists are beginning to better understand what is happening. Earlier this year, unexpectedly, Jupiter’s dark Southern Equatorial Belt (SEB) disappeared.
The changes were first noted by amateurs dedicated to watching Jupiter full time. The South Equatorial Band has been seen to change colors before, although the change has never been recorded in such detail. Detailed professional observations revealed that high-flying light-colored ammonia-based clouds formed over the planet-circling dark belt.
Now those light clouds are dissipating, again unveiling the lower dark clouds. Pictured above two weeks ago, far infrared images — depicted in false-color red — show a powerful storm system active above the returning dark belt. Continued observations of Jupiter’s current cloud opera, and our understanding of it, is sure to continue.
h/t to Dr. Leif Svalgaard
Obviously climate disruption, too much CO2 on Jupiter.
El Nino
Not only obviously caused by CO2 but much worse than we thought.
Regarding these phenomena, could there be a connection with the theory of Dr. Velikovsky about the origin of Venus?
Obviously Jupiter has a system for radiating heat to space, and this is part of it. As long as Jupiter really is a gas giant, and not iron at the core (…) it is likely that the gases oscillate between dominant phases in the atmosphere, and in this particular band the lower darker clouds and higher lighter clouds are just cycles in the pattern. And it’s worse than we thought.
Oh… no need for that? Wrong planet? Well, can we find a way to sneak it in anyway? ;-D
Weather on Jupiter is not climate. Or is it the other way around?
Not a storm at all – looks more like Nessie to me!
P.S. h.oldeboom – no
Sounds like Jupiter has volcanic or convection activity spewing ammonia and other gasses in to its upper atmosphere, located in the SEB region. This could explain the variations in the mysterious great red spot and other vortices located in the SEB.
With the heliosphere’s strength weakening, Jupiter’s magnetosphere (the largest in the solar system) will be expanding, this could have a considerable effect on the Jupiter’s clouds, atmosphere and ionosphere.
Hope the volcano comment was a joke, considering the lack of a surface. Jupiter has always been fascinating because it doesn’t make sense. How can something so massive only be a coalescing of a bunch of gases with a metallic hydrogen (and according to Arthur C. Clarke a diamond inside that) core. It’s a fascinating n-body problem with thermodynamic involvement.
P.S. h.oldeboom – yes
See “Jove’s Thunderbolts” at http://www.varchive.org/bdb/thunderbolts.htm
Einstein famously took the incorrect position that Jupiter was not electrically charged. That didn’t work out very well for him. Dr. V. won the bet.
When will the pleas commence to send funds from industrialized nations to the poor Saturnians? Fair is fair.
It’s the Southern Equatorial Belt Oscillation, innit?
vukcevic says:
November 30, 2010 at 3:10 am
As usual, our friend Vukcevic is right. Occam´s Razor: “the simplest explanation is more likely the correct one”. :
With the heliosphere’s strength weakening, Jupiter’s magnetosphere (the largest in the solar system) will be expanding
Period!.
vukcevic says:
November 30, 2010 at 3:10 am
I reckon this is the nub of it; its a megnetosphere response effect.
Hmm… Send more satellites….:-)
Awww come on guys! , it’s so simple. Maybe you all need a refresher course…Hey! It’s all ball bearings these days.
vukcevic says:
November 30, 2010 at 3:10 am
With the heliosphere’s strength weakening, Jupiter’s magnetosphere (the largest in the solar system) will be expanding, this could have a considerable effect on the Jupiter’s clouds, atmosphere and ionosphere.
~
I don’t know about all that Vuks, but this puts some perspective on it.
Big Mystery: Jupiter Loses a Stripe
May 20, 2010:
In a development that has transformed the appearance of the solar system’s largest planet, one of Jupiter’s two main cloud belts has completely disappeared.
..This isn’t the first time the SEB has faded out.
“The SEB fades at irregular intervals, most recently in 1973-75, 1989-90, 1993, 2007, 2010,” says John Rogers, director of the British Astronomical Association’s Jupiter Section. “The 2007 fading was terminated rather early, but in the other years the SEB was almost absent, as at present.”
The return of the SEB can be dramatic.
“We can look forward to a spectacular outburst of storms and vortices when the ‘SEB Revival’ begins,” says Rogers. “It always begins at a single point, and a disturbance spreads out rapidly around the planet from there, often becoming spectacular even for amateurs eyeballing the planet through medium-sized telescopes. However we can’t predict when or where it will start. On historical precedent it could be any time in the next 2 years. We hope it will be in the next few months so that everyone can get a good view. .
http://science.nasa.gov/media/medialibrary/2010/05/19/loststripe_strip.jpg
http://science.nasa.gov/science-news/science-at-nasa/2010/20may_loststripe/
vukcevic says:
November 30, 2010 at 3:10 am
With the heliosphere’s strength weakening, Jupiter’s magnetosphere (the largest in the solar system) will be expanding, this could have a considerable effect on the Jupiter’s clouds, atmosphere and ionosphere.
The heliospheric ‘strength’ is picking up again, and as for Earth, the size of the magnetosphere does not have any significant effect on the clouds and atmospheric circulation. Jupiter’s magnetosphere is dominated by plasma from Io and Europa and from the rapidly rotating planet itself and not by the solar wind [although some small effect probably occurs, especially on the night side].
Total lack of adult CO2; ammonia smothering baby molecules as they try to form.
Carla,
Thanks for the ‘backgrounder’ and the links! Tigers may not be able to change their stripes… but Jupiter can! These disturbances appear similar to ‘standing waves’ in marine estuaries where tidal flow reversals set up the proper conditions.
Those eruptions in the photo detail have a curiously magnetic field line shape to them.
Fact is, we know even less about Jovian climate/weather than we do about good old planet Earth, if that is possible, yet just like here, everyone has a theory. I’ll bet on the diamond in the center. C+Heat+Pressure=Diamonds.
The changes were first noted by amateurs dedicated to watching Jupiter full time.
If it wasn’t observed by top UN scientists and PhDs then it really didn’t happened. ;->
Io orbits close in to Jupiter, so intense electromagnetic radiation bombards its surface, removing approximately one ton per second in gases and other materials. Io acts like an electrical generator as it travels through Jupiter’s plasmasphere, inducing over 400,000 volts across its diameter at more than three million amperes. That tremendous current flows across its magnetic field into the electric environment of Jupiter.
The plumes seen erupting from Io are the result of cathode arcs, electrically etching the surface and blasting sulfur dioxide “snow” up to 150 kilometers into space.
http://www.thunderbolts.info/tpod/00current.htm