title: Thermal structure and dynamics of Saturn's northern springtime disturbance.
abstract: Saturn's slow seasonal evolution was disrupted in 2010-2011 by the eruption of a bright storm in its northern spring hemisphere. Thermal infrared spectroscopy showed that within a month, the resulting planetary-scale disturbance had generated intense perturbations of atmospheric temperatures, winds, and composition between 20° and 50°N over an entire hemisphere (140,000 kilometers). The tropospheric storm cell produced effects that penetrated hundreds of kilometers into Saturn's stratosphere (to the 1-millibar region). Stratospheric subsidence at the edges of the disturbance produced "beacons" of infrared emission and longitudinal temperature contrasts of 16 kelvin. The disturbance substantially altered atmospheric circulation, transporting material vertically over great distances, modifying stratospheric zonal jets, exciting wave activity and turbulence, and generating a new cold anticyclonic oval in the center of the disturbance at 41°N.
authors: Atmospheric, Oceanic and Planetary Physics, Department of Physics, Clarendon Laboratory, University of Oxford, Parks Road, Oxford, OX1 3PU, UK. fletcher@atm.ox.ac.uk
authors: Leigh N
authors: LN
authors: Fletcher
authors: Brigette E
authors: BE
authors: Hesman
authors: Patrick G J
authors: PG
authors: Irwin
authors: Kevin H
authors: KH
authors: Baines
authors: Thomas W
authors: TW
authors: Momary
authors: Agustin
authors: A
authors: Sanchez-Lavega
authors: F Michael
authors: FM
authors: Flasar
authors: Peter L
authors: PL
authors: Read
authors: Glenn S
authors: GS
authors: Orton
authors: Amy
authors: A
authors: Simon-Miller
authors: Ricardo
authors: R
authors: Hueso
authors: Gordon L
authors: GL
authors: Bjoraker
authors: Andrei
authors: A
authors: Mamoutkine
authors: Teresa
authors: T
authors: del Rio-Gaztelurrutia
authors: Jose M
authors: JM
authors: Gomez
authors: Bonnie
authors: B
authors: Buratti
authors: Roger N
authors: RN
authors: Clark
authors: Philip D
authors: PD
authors: Nicholson
authors: Christophe
authors: C
authors: Sotin