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

Abstract

We 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.