TY - JOUR
T1 - Dynamic Europa ocean shows transient Taylor columns and convection driven by ice melting and salinity
AU - Ashkenazy, Yosef
AU - Tziperman, Eli
N1 - Funding Information:
We thank Francis Nimmo and Yohai Kaspi. E.T. thanks the Weizmann Institute for its hospitality during parts of this work. Y.A. was funded by the U.S-Israel Binational Science Foundation (BSF grant number 2018152). E.T. was funded by the National Aeronautics and Space Administration Habitable Worlds programme (grant FP062796-A/NNX16AR85G).
Publisher Copyright:
© 2021, The Author(s).
PY - 2021/12/1
Y1 - 2021/12/1
N2 - The deep (~100 km) ocean of Europa, Jupiter’s moon, covered by a thick icy shell, is one of the most probable places in the solar system to find extraterrestrial life. Yet, its ocean dynamics and its interaction with the ice cover have received little attention. Previous studies suggested that Europa’s ocean is turbulent using a global model and taking into account non-hydrostatic effects and the full Coriolis force. Here we add critical elements, including consistent top and bottom heating boundary conditions and the effects of icy shell melting and freezing on ocean salinity. We find weak stratification that is dominated by salinity variations. The ocean exhibits strong transient convection, eddies, and zonal jets. Transient motions organize in Taylor columns parallel to Europa’s axis of rotation, are static inside of the tangent cylinder and propagate equatorward outside the cylinder. The meridional oceanic heat transport is intense enough to result in a nearly uniform ice thickness, that is expected to be observable in future missions.
AB - The deep (~100 km) ocean of Europa, Jupiter’s moon, covered by a thick icy shell, is one of the most probable places in the solar system to find extraterrestrial life. Yet, its ocean dynamics and its interaction with the ice cover have received little attention. Previous studies suggested that Europa’s ocean is turbulent using a global model and taking into account non-hydrostatic effects and the full Coriolis force. Here we add critical elements, including consistent top and bottom heating boundary conditions and the effects of icy shell melting and freezing on ocean salinity. We find weak stratification that is dominated by salinity variations. The ocean exhibits strong transient convection, eddies, and zonal jets. Transient motions organize in Taylor columns parallel to Europa’s axis of rotation, are static inside of the tangent cylinder and propagate equatorward outside the cylinder. The meridional oceanic heat transport is intense enough to result in a nearly uniform ice thickness, that is expected to be observable in future missions.
UR - http://www.scopus.com/inward/record.url?scp=85118689184&partnerID=8YFLogxK
U2 - 10.1038/s41467-021-26710-0
DO - 10.1038/s41467-021-26710-0
M3 - Article
C2 - 34737306
AN - SCOPUS:85118689184
VL - 12
JO - Nature Communications
JF - Nature Communications
SN - 2041-1723
IS - 1
M1 - 6376
ER -