Numerical Simulations of 1990 Saturn’s Giant Storm

Abstract:

We present here a study of the Saturn’s 1990 equatorial major storm based on numerical simulations. Six planetary scale storms, nicknamed as Great White Spots (GWS) have been observed since the nineteenth century, three of them at the equatorial region in 1876 (~ +8º), 1933 (~ +2º), and 1990 (+12º), on the broad prograde equatorial jet where equatorial dynamics dominated producing a storm nucleus, with rapid expansion to the east and west to become a planetary-scale disturbance (Sánchez-Lavega, CHAOS 4, 341-353, 1994). We have detailed information, ground-based CCD imaging and Hubble Space Telescope (HST) data, for the 1990 event. Numerical experiments on the 1990 storm indicate that the onset of the storm can only be reproduced if the Voyager era background zonal flow is used, which suggests that it dominated the circulation dynamics at the storm’s outbreak region at that time. We review the possible impact of the 1990 storm on the equatorial jet, storm dynamics, and how it relates to the observed storm morphology and zonal wind measurements derived from HST observations (Barnet et al., Icarus 100, 499-511, 1992). Observations also describe the formation of equatorial planetary waves and instabilities during the disturbance. We discuss the impact of major energy and mass injection by a planetary-scale convective event on the equatorial dynamics following our simulation results.