A SIMPLE INERTIAL MODEL FOR NEPTUNE ZONAL CIRCULATION

Voyager imaging observations of zonal cloud‐tracked winds on Neptune revealed a strongly subrotational equatorial jet with a speed approaching 500 m·s−1 and generally decreasing retrograde motion toward the poles. The wind data are interpreted with a speculative but revealingly simple model based on steady gradient flow balance and an assumed global homogenization of potential vorticity for shallow layer motion. The prescribed model flow profile relates the equatorial velocity to the mid‐latitude shear, in reasonable agreement with the available data, and implies a global horizontal deformation scale LD≈3000 km. Copyright 1990 by the American Geophysical Union.