Mysterious Temperature Patterns Uncovered in Jupiter’s Atmosphere

The researchers now seek to determine why the temperature patterns occur on the “particular timescales” they take place.

A team of researchers led by Glenn Orton from NASA’s Jet Propulsion Lab (JPL) has managed to discern the patterns of how temperatures on the biggest planet in the Solar System change over time.

The results come having analyzed data supplied by NASA’s missions to Jupiter and obtained through ground-based telescope observations.

During the course of their work, which started back in 1978, the researchers determined that temperatures in Jupiter’s troposphere – the lowest layer of the atmosphere where clouds form – increase and decrease “following definite periods that aren’t tied to the seasons or any other cycles scientists know about,” according to a press release shared on JPL website.

The team also noticed a peculiar link between these temperature changes, as when things literally got hotter at certain latitudes in Jupiter’s northern hemisphere, they also got cooler at the same latitudes in the planet’s southern hemisphere.

“We found a connection between how the temperatures varied at very distant latitudes,” Orton said. “It’s similar to a phenomenon we see on Earth, where weather and climate patterns in one region can have a noticeable influence on weather elsewhere, with the patterns of variability seemingly ‘teleconnected’ across vast distances through the atmosphere.”

The researchers now intend to discern the nature of these changes, with study co-author Leigh Fletcher from the University of Leicester saying: “To understand what’s driving these patterns and why they occur on these particular timescales, we need to explore both above and below the cloudy layers.”