Overview of the project
Keywords: convective processes, zonal jet formation, meridional circulation, thermal structure, methane cycle, troposphere-stratosphere interactions that take place on the ice giants.
Methods: This project focuses on Uranus and Neptune's atmospheres by combining observation and modelling tools:
- We aim at characterizing Uranus and Neptune stratospheric temperatures and winds by exploiting (sub)-millimetric observations;
- We perform numerical simulations of Uranus and Neptune upper tropospheric and stratospheric dynamics with two models developed in parallel: 1) a mesoscale model explicitely resolving small-scale convection processes to investigate the ice giant intermittent storm activity and 2) a general circulation model at global scale to investigate jet formation, wave activity, seasonal forcing, etc. The dynamical core differs (WRF in the first case, DYNAMICO in the second case), but most physics packages (radiative transfer, ...) are in common.
People: Collaboration between three research teams at the Laboratoire de Meteorologie Dynamique (LMD), the Laboratoire d'Astrophysique de Bordeaux (LAB) and the LESIA/Observatoire de Paris :
- Sandrine Guerlet, CNRS researcher at LMD
- Aymeric Spiga, assistant professor at Sorbonne Université and researcher at LMD
- Arthur Le Saux, postdoctoral researcher at LMD
- Ehouarn Millour, research engineer, LMD
- Jérémy Leconte, CNRS researcher at LAB
- Noé Clément, PhD student at LAB
- Thibault Cavalié, CNRS researcher at LAB
- Gwenaël Milcareck, postdoctoral researcher at LAB
- Emmanuel Lellouch, Astronomer at LESIA
- Raphaël Moreno at LESIA
- Oscar Carrion-Gonzalez, postdoctoral researcher at LESIA
News and publications:
- Publication by Oscar Carrion-Gonzalez et al., 2023: Doppler wind measurements in Neptune's stratosphere with ALMA
- Publication by Gwenaël Milcareck et al., 2024: : Radiative-convective models of the atmospheres of Uranus and Neptune: heating sources and seasonal effects
- Publication by Noé Clément et al., 2024: Storms and convection on Uranus and Neptune: impact of methane abundance revealed by a 3D cloud-resolving model
- Gwenaël Milcareck defended his PhD in November, 2023. Congratulations!
Funding
ANR, "Programme de Recherche Collaborative", 2021-2025 (ANR-20-CE49-0009).
