Cassini spacecraft reveals global energy imbalance of Saturn

• Published in: Nature communications Vol. 15; no. 1; pp. 5045 - 18
• Main Authors: Wang, Xinyue, Li, Liming, Jiang, Xun, Fry, Patrick M., West, Robert A., Nixon, Conor A., Guan, Larry, Karandana G, Thishan D., Albright, Ronald, Colwell, Joshua E., Guillot, Tristan, Hofstadter, Mark D., Kenyon, Matthew E., Mallama, Anthony, Perez-Hoyos, Santiago, Sanchez-Lavega, Agustin, Simon, Amy A., Wenkert, Daniel, Zhang, Xi
• Format: Journal Article
• Language: English
• Published: London Nature Publishing Group UK 18.06.2024; Nature Publishing Group; Nature Portfolio
• Subjects: 639/33/445/823; 639/33/445/846; Albedo; Atmosphere; Cassini mission; Climate system; Cooling; Energy; Energy budget; Estimates; Evolution; Heat; Heat flux; Heat transfer; Humanities and Social Sciences; multidisciplinary; Planetary evolution; Planets; Saturn; Science; Science (multidisciplinary); Seasonal variations; Solar system; Spacecraft; Storms; Upper atmosphere
• ISSN: 2041-1723; 2041-1723
• DOI: 10.1038/s41467-024-48969-9

The global energy budget is pivotal to understanding planetary evolution and climate behaviors. Assessing the energy budget of giant planets, particularly those with large seasonal cycles, however, remains a challenge without long-term observations. Evolution models of Saturn cannot explain its estimated Bond albedo and internal heat flux, mainly because previous estimates were based on limited observations. Here, we analyze the long-term observations recorded by the Cassini spacecraft and find notably higher Bond albedo (0.41 ± 0.02) and internal heat flux (2.84 ± 0.20 Wm −2 ) values than previous estimates. Furthermore, Saturn’s global energy budget is not in a steady state and exhibits significant dynamical imbalances. The global radiant energy deficit at the top of the atmosphere, indicative of the planetary cooling of Saturn, reveals remarkable seasonal fluctuations with a magnitude of 16.0 ± 4.2%. Further analysis of the energy budget of the upper atmosphere including the internal heat suggests seasonal energy imbalances at both global and hemispheric scales, contributing to the development of giant convective storms on Saturn. Similar seasonal variabilities of planetary cooling and energy imbalance exist in other giant planets within and beyond the Solar System, a prospect currently overlooked in existing evolutional and atmospheric models. Global energy budgets of planets are important to understand their climate system. Here, the authors show long-term multi-instrument observations from Cassini spacecraft, which reveals dynamical imbalances of Saturn’s global energy budget.