EDIT: If you're new to this thread, you can save yourself a lot of reading by skipping directly to post #78, where the fully developed theory is presented.

The idea that Jupiter's Great Red Spot is a high pressure system is a mainstream idea, as evidenced by a quick google search of "Great Red Spot is a high pressure system". Of the four results returned, there are three prominent mainstream sites: space.com, nasa.gov, and our own bautforum.com that perpetuate the claim. This urban astronomical myth has been perpetuated most recently here by Robert Tulip in the What will become of Jupiters spot? thread.

Indeed, the myth that Jupiter is a high pressure system has been promoted by that great mythbuster, The Bad Astronomer himself on his very own blog!

As Phil notes, the primary evidence that the GRB is a high pressure system is that it is located in Jupiter's southern hemisphere, yet it is rotating counterclockwise--the direction opposite observed by all hurricanes (a.k.a. "cyclones" as they are known Down Under) in Earth's southern hemisphere. This interpretation of the evidence is spurious, however.

The primary evidence that the Great Red Spot is a low pressure system involves the ordinary behavior of such systems. In an atmospheric high pressure system, cold high pressure flows outwardly from the center of the system along the lower boundary layer. Ideally, such air will then rise and return to the center via a central downwelling zone. However, since cold air is denser than warm air, it tends not to rise. That's why high pressure zones on Earth aren't very windy--they just don't do very much. In low pressure zones, on the other hand, warm surface air is sucked to the central zone and then rises around the "eye" to the upper boundary layer where it cools and spreads. It strains crudulity think that Jupiter would be doing the opposite.

Therefore, the Great Red Spot is indeed an ordinary Earth-like storm. What we really observe on Jupiter is the upper layer of an ordinary low pressure storm. In an Earth-bound hurricane, the upper layer of the air mass consisting the hurricane does indeed move in an anticyclonic direction--we just don't observe that rotation in satellite photos because the upper layer is transparent, whereas the lower layer is loaded with clouds. As the warm, moisture-laden air rises, it releases its moisture in the form of rain, becoming transparent.

Thus, my model predicts that the air comprising the GRB is opaque. Presumably, its lower layer that we can't see rotates in the ordinary cyclonic fashion.

This is going to be fun. . . .

As a side note, I reached my conclusion by applying the teleological methodology of reverse engineering that I promoted in my previous ATM thread. The Great Red Spot is the most well designed, perfect storm in the solar system. Yet high pressure designs are the worst possible designs for storms. It was therefore inconceivable to me that the high pressure system model could be correct. This allowed me to quickly zero in on the true explanation.
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Note: Thread can be skimmed by reading posts with bold titles or by following the chain of links at the bottom of those pages.

BTW, I am cutting and pasting the Wikipedia article on the GRB here in order to time stamp its present state for the archives so that no one can say it was in the Wikipedia all along.


Copy and pasted material removed Please just post a link.

Link to Wikipedia Article on Great Red Spot as of October 14, 2007

I wonder if this could get more response in the Astronomy section. It doesn't seem so ATM to me.

No doubt it seems that way to you, sir. But what are nasa.gov, space.com, bautforum.com, and badastronomy.com but mainstream astronomy sites? The mainstream is what the mainstream press says it is. Remember, mere truth has little to do with an idea is mainstream or not. Geocentrism was once mainstream, and Galileo was the ultimate ATMer of his time.

BTW, ExpErdMann before you go googleing your butt off in search of the truth (I suspect you'll find the truth--it's too obvious--but it won't be easy through google at least, because the myth is so popular it's clogged the search engine with false data ), I'd be curious to know what your opinion on this matter was this morning.

The other evidence that TGRS is high-pressure is that it is red, due to the organic molecules continually being upthrust throught the lighter-colored upper cloud layers from the more chemically active lower cloud layers, suggesting a "hot spot" with upward currents.

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"If this were play'd upon a stage now, I could condemn it as an improbable fiction."
Shakespeare, Twelfth Night
"The Mayan symbol for "book" looks a lot like a triple hamburger, but I've never seen them claiming it as proof the Mayans had Big Macs." - KaiYeves
"Distance doesn’t matter much in space, where if you just start a thing off with the right kind of shove, sooner or later it will get where you want it to go." -Frederik Pohl, Mining the Oort

True, but Earth-based hurricanes have their own "hot spots": the equitorial zones of the great oceans!

BTW mods, if you want to move it, fine with me. But I request that it be added to my other ATM thread, on teleological science, and that it be reopended for a week or so. I was asked in that thread to come up with another astronomical example where the teleological method worked. I had mentioned the GRB in my final post in that thread, as the type of system I had in mind where the teleological method might be applicable. It was because of this teleological method, that I was able to immediately see through Robert Tulip's claim that the GRB is a high pressure system this morning. Before then I had never paid attention to whether the observed rotation was cyclonic or anticyclonic, and couldn't tell you what direction it was. Yet the myth that the Red Spot is a high pressure system has been perpetuated at least four times in this forum alone. There are thousands of registered members on this forum, but because of their view that the GRB is a passive, mechanistic system that blindly follows that laws of physics, the idea that a high pressure system is a poor design wouldn't even occur to them; to them, that the GRB might be different from Earth-bound hurricanes was just one of those weirdnesses you find out there in space all the time. (indeed, it even prompted Robert Tulip to speculate about the relation between the GRB, and the high pressure "storms" we do find here on Earth! ). I, on the other hand, view the GRB as functionally organized because of the history of natural selection it has undergone. Therefore, I was able to independently come to the truth in less than an hour without having to look it up, (though I did indeed try to look it up in order to show up Mr. Tulip--I couldn't find it and still can't). This demonstrates the at least occassional potency of the teleological method. Therefore, I would like to give other forum members the chance to challenge me on this point and show that my experience this morning does not in fact support the use of methodological teleology in the physical sciences.

Besides, the thread on tired light at the time sucked all the oxygen out of the ATM section at the time, and so my thread was really only active for a couple of weeks.

Also, I'd like a chance to respond to Robert Tulip's final comment that he sniped into my thread a few minutes before it was closed.

Given the size and variable nature of the great red spot is it right to assume that the source of the energy is just from the flow of the atmosphere?

I will not add my idea because that is (well not even under consideration) but has the driving source of the GRS ever been thought to be from within the planet in much the same way the magnetic field lines are that drive the sun?

It is noted that Jupiter gives off more heat than it receives and that there is an exceptionally high current detected indicating possibly that the source is internal and not a creation of wind.

IIRC, the source of energy couldn't just be from the flow itself--that would be a perpetual motion machine. However, the sun's energy isn't powerful enough to drive the GRS, especially seeing how Jupiter is so far from the Sun. Ergo, the energy source must be internal. On my view, what makes the GRS special is that it is able to tap extra deep sources of energy not available to most other storms; just because it is so powerful, it has managed to set up its own postivie feedback system.

I meant hot spot in the thermal updraft sense, not the "happen there a lot" sense. Sorry.

__________________
"If this were play'd upon a stage now, I could condemn it as an improbable fiction."
Shakespeare, Twelfth Night
"The Mayan symbol for "book" looks a lot like a triple hamburger, but I've never seen them claiming it as proof the Mayans had Big Macs." - KaiYeves
"Distance doesn’t matter much in space, where if you just start a thing off with the right kind of shove, sooner or later it will get where you want it to go." -Frederik Pohl, Mining the Oort

The direction of circulation of an atmosphereic disturbance is determined by the radial direction of flow (in or out) and the coriolis effect.

Inward flow is defined as low pressure. Outward flow is high pressure. With these two terms defined you get only two possibles per hemisphere for rotation. In a southern hemisphere for a normal rotation object, the high pressure rotation is counterclockwise. It cant be the other way around with simple pressure driven flows.

If you want to see this for yourself, look up the derivation of the coriolis effect.

There are rare counterexamples on Earth of anticyclonic tornados. Check out YouTube for some cool videos. However, the GRB is a conventional storm of the low pressure variety; it's hard to think of what a real high pressure storm would be like. The mainstream claim is that the GRB is different from Earth bound hurricanes: the former is supposed to be driven by high pressure, whereas the latter is driven by low pressure. To escape this result by definitional fiat, well, we might as well call Earth-bound hurricanes high pressure storms. Still haven't found that paper that agrees with my model yet though. . . .

tornadoes are not big enough to really feel the coriolis effect so anticyclonic tornadoes are not truly suprising. They also have nothing to do with what we are discussing.

There is no 'definitional fiat' either. If you have an object moving with a velocity in a rotating system, its motions are defined by Newtons Laws. The velocity changes in very specific ways. When you add how pressure changes effect any free moving fluid, you get a very specific set of motions.

For a normally rotating object, that is an object rotating in the same direction as Earth, with a pressure disturbance in its southern hemisphere, you have one of two cases. If it is a high pressure system, the air tries to flow outward from the center but is deflected via the coriolis effect into a counter-clockwise rotation. If it is a low pressure system, the air tries to flow inward and is deflected into a clockwise direction.

So, if you know the direction of rotation, you know the sign of the pressure differental. When you check terrestrial sources, you see that known pressure differentials follow this law. You will see that typhoons (is that correct terminology anyone?) in the south pacific, which are known, measured low pressure systems rotate clockwise and high pressure systems rotate counter-clockwise.

When you look at the Great Red Spot, you see that it is rotating like a terrestrial high pressure system. Since we only used Newtons laws to derive the motion of the winds, either the GRS is a high pressure system, or Newtons laws dont work on Jupiter. There isnt any way around this.

Sir, surely you are not suggesting that Hurricane Katrina, for example, was not one system, but two? Well, I guess I myself consist of at least a couple of dozen separate systems--maybe I should add a few sock puppets to this site!

Do you know the difference between the southern hemisphere and the northern hemisphere?

space.com
nasa.gov:
bautforum.com
badastronomy.com
haydenplanetarium.org
spacedaily.comuniversetoday.com
more from space.com
physicsforums.com
The Hubble Heritage Site
wonderquest.com
usatoday.com
tufts.edu (NASA's Cosmos)
So, Korjik, you are not doing anyone a favor by insisting that the GRB be referred to as a high pressure system that is somehow in contrast to hurricanes on Earth. I mean, should we refer to hurricanes on Earth as high pressure systems? You're only adding to the prevailing (popular, mainstream) confusion.

Of course, sir. However, the GRB (what we see of it anyways) rotates in a counterclockwise direction--apparently the opposite of what we observe in southern hemisphere typhoons. This then is taken as evidence that the GRB is somehow fundamentally different from Earth-bound hurricanes. I'm saying that there is no fundamental difference between Earth-bound hurricanes and the GRB.

I'm still not clear on what your position on this issue is. Are you saying that the GRB and Earth-bound hurricanes are fundamentally similar? If so, then what is the use of your insistance that we use two different labels to describe one phenomenon?

No, you dont really understand what I am saying.

I will put it really simply.
On the Earth, in the Northern hemisphere, a Low pressure system rotates counterclockwise

On the Earth, in the Northern hemisphere, a High pressure system rotates clockwise

On the Earth, in the Southern hemisphere, a Low pressure system rotates clockwise

On the Earth, in the Southern hemisphere, a High pressure system rotates counterclockwise

All these are measured and known and are a result of the coriolis effect. Since we have no reason to think that physics works differently on Jupiter than on Earth we end up with:

On Jupiter, in the Northern hemisphere, a Low pressure system rotates counterclockwise

On Jupiter, in the Northern hemisphere, a High pressure system rotates clockwise

On Jupiter, in the Southern hemisphere, a Low pressure system rotates clockwise

On Jupiter, in the Southern hemisphere, a High pressure system rotates counterclockwise

Now, when we look at the GRS, we see it is on Jupiter, in the southern hemisphere, and rotates counterclockwise. That means it is a high pressure system.

Looking at Hurricane Katrina, we see it is on Earth, in the northern hemisphere, rotates counterclockwise, and is a low pressure system, and therefore fits our model.

the fact that a northern hemisphere low pressure system rotates the same direction as a southern hemisphere high pressure system is expected, not some strange missing effect that only you can see.

You really should learn basic physics to see how the universe works, and how well it works.

I have taken basic physics, and I have also taken basic meteorology. Have you? Consider the following taken from the American Practical Navigator:

That would seem to support my theory that the GRB actually consists of two zones: a lower zone that rotates like on Earth, and an upper zone that rotates like on Earth--in the anticyclonic direction.

I'm saying the mainstream view has conflated the GRB's upper zone with the lower zone of Earth based hurricanes.

Would there be any value in saying the solar system is essentially driven by a Sun-Jupiter paired system. In turn Jupiter is known to force the other planets such as Earth into distinct solar orbital distances

So is it possible a Coriolis effect on earth may be forced due to the binary pairing with Jupiter then having an anti-clockwise storm potential in its southern hemisphere?

You really need to work on your posting technique.

If you had posted the post I quoted here, in response to my first post, along with an acknowledgement that I was right, but that that is not what you were talking about, and explained what you were talking about, we could have moved this dicussion along.

By the way, this is not an ATM topic. You are taking a known effect on Earth and applying it to what looks like the same thing on a different planet. That is a most mainstream way to do things.

As for your assertion, now that I think I understand it, you could be right. If terrestrial hurricane start circulating opposite at high altitude, there is no reason to think that Jupiters cant have the same effect happen. You are also right that if there are clouds at the counterrotating altitude then it would be hard to tell that there is a low below the apparent high.

The only problem I can see it the 'centered hundreds of miles away' part. That would put the low level low underneath the GRS tens of thousands of miles away from the apparent center of the GRS, when you scale things up.

Can you find cloud height data for the GRS and the surrounding coud bands? If the GRS cloud tops are much lower than the surrounding bands, that would tend to disprove your hypothesis.

Now that I look back, I can see where you were coming from. I should have seen that.

That may be a most mainstream way to do things (although the way I achieved that conclusion is decidedly not a mainstream way to do things, unless you're a biologist). However, the mainstream conclusion is that the GRS is quite extraordinary; therefore, the ATM view is by default that the GRS is in fact rather ordinary, just a lot bigger.

Thank you. I was beginning to get paranoid.

But Jupiter is a pretty big planet.

The Wikipedia article on the GRS says the cloudtops of the GRS extend 8 km above the surrounding cloudtops.

Some people say Jupiter was a failed star, and so you could call this a binary system, I guess. As for orbital distances, I think you're referring to Bode's law. The one physicist I talked to says it's just a random coincidence. Personally, I think if you take the view that planetesimals compete for matter, each zone is just the result of the local winner taking over. But that's a whole other thread topic.

Absolutely not. You need go no further than the merry goround at the local playground to experience the Coriolis effect.

Now all you have to do is get NASA to make a bunch of probes to go take direct measurements

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.

Next post: #31

How would you make a seismograph to study Jupiter's interior?

Hey, I'm serious!

Just for sake of clarity (and to be nit-picky because I know you know this) GRB = Gamma Ray Burst

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I was just sitting here contemplating the immortal words of Socrates who said, "I drank what?"

"Think of the rivers of blood spilled by all those generals and emperors so that, in glory and triumph, they could become the momentary masters of a fraction of a dot." --Carl Sagan "Pale Blue Dot"

Thank you, Kelfazin. Corrections have been made.

Ask George, he's into helioseismology.

I once listened to a famous geophysicist describe his theory of the effect of the impact of the comet Shoemaker-Levy on the antipode of Jupiter, the year before the impact.