Malte F. Jansen; Wanying Kang; Edwin S. Kite; Yaoxuan Zeng · 2023 · The Planetary Science Journal
Paper
Abstract Globally ice-covered oceans have been found on multiple moons in the solar system and may also have been a feature of Earth’s past. However, relatively little is understood about the dynamics of these ice-covered oceans, which affect not only the physical environment but also any potential life and its detectability. A number of studies have simulated the circulation of icy-world oceans, but have come to seemingly widely different conclusions. To better understand and narrow down these diverging results, we discuss the energetic constraints for the circulation on ice-covered oceans, focusing in particular on Snowball Earth, Europa, and Enceladus. The energy input that can drive ocean circulation on ice-covered bodies can be associated with heat and salt fluxes at the boundaries as well as ocean tides and librations. We show that heating from the solid core balanced by heat loss through the ice sheet can drive an ocean circulation, but the resulting flows would be relatively weak and strongly affected by rotation. Salt fluxes associated with freezing and melting at the ice sheet boundary are unlikely to energetically drive a circulation, although they can shape the large-scale circulation when combined with turbulent mixing. Ocean tides and librations may provide an energy source for such turbulence, but the magnitude of this energy source remains highly uncertain for the icy moons, which poses a major obstacle to predicting the ocean dynamics of icy worlds and remains an important topic for future research.
Analysis
This paper analyzes the energetic constraints on ocean circulation in icy ocean worlds, focusing on Snowball Earth, Europa, and Enceladus, to reconcile diverging simulation results.
Discovery
Nancy Y. Kiang; Christopher Gisriel; Robert E. Blankenship; Mary N. Parenteau; Hazel A. Barton; Oded Béjà; Anthony J. Burnetti; Ligia F. Coelho; Saleheh Ebadirad; Nathan M. Ennist; Yuka Fujii; Colin Gates; R. J. Graham; Keiichi Inoue; Betül Kaçar; Yu Komatsu; Émilie A. Laflèche; Nicoletta La Rocca; Elisabetta Liistro; Jonathan Lindsey; Timothy Lyons; Carolina A. Martinez-Gutierrez; Taro Matsuo; Victoria Meadows; Gary F. Moore; Massimo Olivucci; Kevin E. Redding; Edward W. Schwieterman; Tejinder Singh; Kenji Takizawa; Anna Grace Ulses; Junko Yano; Felisa Wolfe-Simon; Michael L. Wong; Anastasia G. Yanchilina
Peter M. Higgins; Weibin Chen; Oliver Warr; Lucas M. Fifer; Wanying Kang; Charles S. Cockell; Barbara Sherwood Lollar
Caroline Haslebacher; Emeline Bolmont; Marco Cilibrasi; Jonathan Grone; Nico Haslebacher; Ravit Helled; Mathilde Kervazo; Niels F. W. Ligterink; Christophe Lovis; Lucio Mayer; Lorenzo Obersnel; Rafael Ottersberg; Apurva V. Oza; C. H. Lucas Patty; Antoine Pommerol; Ganna Portyankina; Alyssa R. Rhoden; Leander Schlarmann; Yuhito Shibaike; Vishaal Singh; Audrey H. Vorburger; Peter Wurz
Conor A. Nixon; Samuel Birch; Audrey Chatain; Charles Cockell; Kendra K. Farnsworth; Peter M. Higgins; Stéphane Le Mouélic; Rosaly M. C. Lopes; Michael J. Malaska; Mohit Melwani Daswani; Kelly E. Miller; Catherine D. Neish; Olaf G. Podlaha; Jani Radebaugh; Lauren R. Schurmeier; Ashley Schoenfeld; Krista M. Soderlund; Anezina Solomonidou; Christophe Sotin; Nicholas A. Teanby; Tetsuya Tokano; Steven D. Vance
Niki Parenteau; Giada Arney; Eleanora Alei; Ruslan Belikov; Svetlana; Berdyugina; Dawn Cardace; Ligia F. Coelho; Kevin Fogarty; Kenneth Gordon; Jonathan Grone; Natalie Hinkel; Nancy Kiang; Ravi Kopparapu; Joshua Krissansen-Totton; Emilie LaFleche; Jacob Lustig-Yaeger; Eric Mamajek; Avi Mandell; Taro Matsuo; Connor Metz; Mark Moussa; Stephanie Olson; Lucas Patty; Bill Philpot; Sukrit Ranjan; Edward Schwieterman; Clara Sousa-Silva; Anna Grace Ulses; Sara Walker; Daniel Whitt
Saggio D; Phung CL; Bravo M; Corcoran TC; Snyder JC; Stieber SCE
Source record