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Recorded video: YouTube, Bilibili

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Abstract:

Close-in giant planets with strong stellar irradiation show atmospheric circulation patterns with strong equatorial jets and global-scale stationary waves. So far, almost all modeling works on atmospheric circulations of such giant planets have mainly considered external radiation alone, without taking into account the role of internal heat fluxes or just treating it in very simplified ways. Here, we study atmospheric circulations of strongly irradiated giant planets by considering the effect of internal forcing, which is characterized by small-scale stochastic interior thermal perturbations, using a three-dimensional atmospheric general circulation model. We show that the perturbation-excited waves can largely modify atmospheric circulation patterns in the presence of relatively strong internal forcing. Specifically, our simulations demonstrate three circulation regimes: a superrotation regime, a midlatitude-jet regime, and a quasi-periodic oscillation regime, depending on the relative importance of external and internal forcings. It is also found that strong internal forcing can cause noticeable modifications of the thermal phase curves.

About the speaker:

Yongyun Hu is a Professor in the Department of Atmospheric and Oceanic Sciences, School of Physics, Peking University. He had served as the Department Chair the Vice Dean (2009-2019). He finished his BS at Sun Yat-sen University (1982-1986), MS at Texas A&M University, and PhD at the University of Chicago (1996-2000). He had worked as a Postdoctoral Research Associate at the University of Washington (2000-2002) and Columbia University (2002-2004). He has broad research interests in present, past, and planetary climates.

Audience in the world:

(image credit: timeanddate.com)

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