Evolution of the Horizontal Winds in Jupiter's Great Red Spot From One Jovian Year of HST/WFC3 Maps

Abstract

AbstractWe measured the horizontal winds in Jupiter's Great Red Spot (GRS) using data from the WFC3/UVIS instrument on board the Hubble Space Telescope (HST). The data cover 11 epochs from 2009 to 2020. Long‐term monotonic trends in size and shape previously noted from the visible cloud appearance are paralleled by changes in the high‐speed ring around the vortex. The circularization of the GRS cannot be explained by changes in the horizontal wind shear of the surrounding environment. The velocity fields suggest no long‐term trend in the static stability inside or outside the vortex. Instead, the changes are accompanied by a 4%–8% increase in the mean wind speeds of the high‐speed ring from 2009 to 2020. Changes in the wind field coincided with the South Equatorial Belt Outbreak storms of 2016–2017, but not with 2019 "flaking" events involving detachment of red material from the main oval.