Giant planet atmospheric modelling

About the Project

These projects are open to students worldwide, but have no funding attached. Therefore, the successful applicant will be expected to fund tuition fees at the relevant level (home or international) and any applicable additional research costs. Please consider this before applying.

Fifty years on from the first spacecraft fly-by of a giant planet in 1973, many aspects of giant planet atmospheres remain poorly understood. Recent discoveries by NASA's Juno and Cassini spacecraft dominate our current understanding of Jupiter and Saturn. Missions such as ESA's JUICE (launched to Jupiter in 2023) and potential ice giant missions (high priority in NASA’s most recent Decadal Survey [1]) mean the coming years will be crucial for our understanding of giant planet atmospheres. These planets are archetypes for gaseous planets around other stars but can be studied in much more detail than any extrasolar planet and are some of the best natural examples of turbulence on a rotating sphere [2].

Numerical simulations are key to our understanding of giant planets. They help test ideas in the absence of complete observations, identify the smallest set of processes that explain specific phenomena, and allow the effects of individual physical processes to be isolated. In recent decades significant progress has been made simulating giant planet atmospheres using numerical simulations of varying complexity. The Jason General Circulation Model (GCM) [3], based on the widely used MITgcm ocean model [4], simulates Jupiter's upper troposphere and lower stratosphere. It qualitatively reproduces several of the major features of Jupiter's weather layer, such as the banded jet structure, eastward equatorial jet, typical zonal jet speeds, and a variety of turbulent vortices.

This PhD project will study the dynamics of giant planet atmospheres using the Jason GCM. The student will have some flexibility to choose which areas to explore, depending on their personal interests and experience. Some possibilities include:

• Modelling the strange distribution of ammonia revealed by the Juno spacecraft. Most of the atmosphere near the cloud level is depleted, apart from a thin column near the equator where there is enhanced ammonia.
• Studying the stratospheric general circulation on Jupiter and Saturn and the links between their stratospheres and tropospheres. This will require extending Jason into the stratosphere and adding gravity wave drag and stratospheric hazes [5].
• Extending the model to the ice giants Uranus and Neptune, in view of a potential future mission to visit one of those planets.
• Modelling Jupiter’s polar regions, which have been revealed by Juno to contain regularly-spaced and long-lasting cyclonic vortices structures [6]. These should be unstable yet have persisted throughout the mission and are presumably long-lived. The GCM can be used to try to understand the physical processes underlying these phenomena.

This project will suit a keen computationally minded and mathematically strong student with an interest in planetary science or astrophysics, who is excited about using state-of-the-art numerical simulations and recent spacecraft observations of the giant planets. The work will make use of High Performance Computing facilities where appropriate, either within the University of Aberdeen or at a national centre. Prior programming experience is essential, and Linux experience will be helpful.

Informal enquiries can be made by contacting Dr R Young (roland.young@abdn.ac.uk)

Decisions will be based on academic merit. The successful applicant should have, or expect to obtain, a UK Honours Degree at 2.1 (or equivalent) in Physics or Applied Mathematics. Applicants whose undergraduate degree is in a related field with a strong mathematical component may be considered. The ideal student will already have taken courses in fluid dynamics and atmospheric physics. The project is primarily computational and a strong aptitude for programming and prior scientific programming experience is required. The ideal student will already have experience using a compiled language (preferably Fortran or C) and experience with a high-level language such as Python or MATLAB.

We encourage applications from all backgrounds and communities, and are committed to having a diverse, inclusive team.

Application Procedure:

Formal applications can be completed online: https://www.abdn.ac.uk/pgap/login.php.

You should apply for Degree of Doctor of Philosophy in Physics to ensure your application is passed to the correct team for processing.

Please clearly note the name of the lead supervisor and project titleon the application form. If you do not include these details, it may not be considered for the project.

Your application must include: A personal statement, an up-to-date copy of your academic CV, and clear copies of your educational certificates and transcripts .

Please note: you do not need to provide a research proposal with this application.

If you require any additional assistance in submitting your application or have any queries about the application process, please don't hesitate to contact us at researchadmissions@abdn.ac.uk