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Originally Posted by mugaliens
Hurricanes are low-pressure systems as follows:
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A tropical cyclone's primary energy source is the release of the heat of condensation from water vapor condensing at high altitudes, with solar heating being the initial source for evaporation. Therefore, a tropical cyclone can be visualized as a giant vertical heat engine supported by mechanics driven by physical forces such as the rotation and gravity of the Earth.
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By contrast, Jupiter's GRS is a eddy caused by the interaction of two bands of gases on Jupiter moving at different velocities relative to one another. How many spots you get is related to the relative velocities of the bands - the greater the relative velocity, the more the eddies. It's merely a function of turbulent flow.
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mugaliens, since your post in the Q&A Jupiter thread is clearly directed at my contention that the GRS is a hurricane, I'll address it here in order to keep the separate threads on topic. And although I see that you gave references for what an eddy is, and for what turbulent flow is, you didn't give a reference that connects those with the GRS--probably because no such reference exists. The GRS is no mere eddy. Just look at it. It has a different color, it is much bigger, it is more long-lived, and it's cloudtops extend 8 km above the ordinary cloudtops. In short, it's a storm of some kind, driven by heat.
Sure, it's sandwiched between opposing jet streams. But where else would it be? All living things seek to find an appropriate habitat.
Probably, on Jupiter, way down below, the density gets so great that the ordinary gases we are familiar with undergo a phase transition, rather analogous the phase transition that the mineral olivine undergoes half-way through the Earth's mantle; at the olivine phase transition, the density increases in a quantum style easily noticeable by seismographs. Similarly, the hypothesized phase transition on Jupiter represents a radical increase from the ordinary gaseous density to a significantly higher density composed of who-knows-what. It might be rather gaseous, texture-wise, but for the GRS's practical purposes, this represents the ground, and there is ordinarily very little mixing or other interaction between the upper and lower layers, except through heat transfers via conduction, rather than convection.
So, what probably happens is that the GRS is able to lower the local pressure enough so that the pent-up matter beyond the phase transition is able to break out and become ordinary gas once again. It would be like as if Hurricane Katrina were able to lower the local pressure enough to cause the ocean underneith it to boil and thus not only add heat, but more atmosphere itself as well.
That is what has enabled the GRS to take on a life of its own, why it is red, and why it is so powerful--and that's why it is no mere eddy. No doubt, the GRS started out as a predatory eddy making a living by cannabalizing its fellow denizens; but once it got big enough to tap into the below-the-phase-transition-zone, it gave up the cannabalistic life-style in favor of plasmavory. People say that the GRS still eats storms, but just watch the videos. It doesn't mess with the local eddies, except to get in their way and suck them into its turbulent wake, where they get smashed to bits. But even then, the remnants just get washed away and don't become part of the GRS itself.
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