Influences of Internal Forcing on Atmospheric Circulations of Irradiated Giant Planets

Abstract

Close-in giant planets with strong stellar irradiation show atmospheric circulation patterns with strong equatorial jets and global-scale stationary waves. So far, almost all modeling works on atmospheric circulations of such giant planets have mainly considered external radiation alone, without taking into account the role of internal heat fluxes or just treating it in very simplified ways. Here, we study atmospheric circulations of strongly irradiated giant planets by considering the effect of internal forcing, which is characterized by small-scale stochastic interior thermal perturbations, using a three-dimensional atmospheric general circulation model. We show that the perturbation-excited waves can largely modify atmospheric circulation patterns in the presence of relatively strong internal forcing. Specifically, our simulations demonstrate three circulation regimes: a superrotation regime, a midlatitude-jet regime, and a quasi-periodic oscillation regime, depending on the relative importance of external and internal forcings. It is also found that strong internal forcing can cause noticeable modifications of the thermal phase curves. © 2022. The Author(s). Published by the American Astronomical Society.