Applications of Conditional Nonlinear Optimal Perturbation to the Study of the Stability and Sensitivity of the Jovian Atmosphere

A two-layer quasi-geostrophic model is used to study the stability and sensitivity of motions on smallscale vortices in Jupiter’s atmosphere. Conditional nonlinear optimal perturbations (CNOPs) and linear singular vectors (LSVs) are both obtained numerically and compared in this paper. The results show that CNOPs can capture the nonlinear characteristics of motions in small-scale vortices in Jupiter’s atmosphere and show great difference from LSVs under the condition that the initial constraint condition is large or the optimization time is not very short or both. Besides, in some basic states, local CNOPs are found. The pattern of LSV is more similar to local CNOP than global CNOP in some cases. The elementary application of the method of CNOP to the Jovian atmosphere helps us to explore the stability of variousscale motions of Jupiter’s atmosphere and to compare the stability of motions in Jupiter’s atmosphere and Earth’s atmosphere further.