| Summary: | We present a power spectral analysis of two narrow annular regions near Jupiter's South Pole derived from data acquired by the Jovian Infrared Auroral Mapper instrument onboard NASA's Juno mission. In particular, our analysis focuses on the data set acquired by the Jovian Infrared Auroral Mapper Mâ€band imager (hereafter IMGâ€M) that probes Jupiter's thermal emission in a spectral window centered at 4.8 μm. We analyze the power spectral densities of circular paths outside and inside of cyclones on images acquired during six Juno perijoves. The typical spatial resolution is around 55 km pixel â»Â¹. We limited our analysis to six acquisitions of the South Pole from February 2017 to May 2018. The power spectral densities both outside and inside the circumpolar ring seem to follow two different power laws. The wave numbers follow average power laws of −0.9 ± 0.2 (inside) and −1.2 ± 0.2 (outside) and of −3.2 ± 0.3 (inside) and −3.4 ± 0.2 (outside), respectively, beneath and above the transition in slope located at ~2 × 10 â»Â³ km â»Â¹ wave number. This kind of spectral behavior is typical of twoâ€dimensional turbulence. We interpret the 500 km length scale, corresponding to the transition in slope, as the Rossby deformation radius. It is compatible with the dimensions of a subset of eddy features visible in the regions analyzed, suggesting that a baroclinic instability may exist. If so, it means that the quasiâ€geostrophic approximation is valid in this context. © 2020 American Geophysical Union. Received 21 JUN 2019; Accepted 3 JUN 2020; Accepted article online 10 JUN 2020. We thank F. Bignami from Institute of Marine Sciences (CNRâ€Italy), A. Provenzale from Institute of Geosciences and Earth Resources (CNRâ€Italy), J. von Hardenberg from Institute of Atmospheric Sciences and Climate (CNRâ€Italy), and A. Bracco from the Georgia Institute of Technology (USA) for their comments and helpful discussions. This work was supported by the Italian Space Agency through ASIâ€INAF contracts I/010/10/0 and ...
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