This is a past event.

This event will be held in M&M U113.

Dr. Ali Hyder, Postdoctoral Scholar working with Glenn Orton at Jet Propulsion Laboratory-NASA, will give a talk entitled "What the Giant Hides –  the Fruits of an Interdisciplinary Approach to Jovian Atmospheric Modeling."

Abstract: Jupiter's oxygen content is inextricably tied to its formation history and the evolution of the early solar system. Observations of trace disequilibrium chemical species that are hosted in the deeper atmosphere, such as CO, are thought to be the result of vertical diffusive mixing and are tied to the planet’s water abundance. Recent one-dimensional thermochemical modeling of CO showed that the planet's bulk water content could be subsolar, in stark contrast to the water enrichment determined near the equator using the Juno spacecraft. In this talk, I will showcase results from our hydrodynamic model that pertain to Jupiter's atmospheric dynamics at and below the water cloud level with disequilibrium thermochemistry. Our coupled approach allows us to explore the effect of hydrodynamics on disequilibrium chemical abundance in the troposphere.  We include PH3 and GeH4 as tracers and demonstrate their lack of sensitivity to the water content in low enrichment cases. Our results suggest an oxygen enrichment range of 2.5-5x solar using updated CO thermochemistry. We also reveal a correlation between moist convection and the CO abundance at the water cloud level using the conventionally adopted CO timescale. If such a correlation is found observationally, subsolar water abundance can also be ruled out.  

Bio: Academic Background: Dr. Ali Hyder is a currently a NASA Postdoctoral Scholar working with Glenn Orton at JPL. He earned his doctorate from New Mexico State University with Dr. Nancy Chanover while collaborating with numerous experts from a wide range of fields. He specializes in theoretical atmospheric and fluid dynamics as applied to the gas giants, with a particular focus on integrating dynamical and chemical modeling.

Research Interests: Dr. Hyder is particularly interested in theoretical models of planetary climates, and computational physics as applied to fluid processes. His current work focuses on extending his doctoral work using better-integrated cloud microphysics for exotic gases that result in deeper cloud formation in the gas giants. He is also working directly with the Juno MWR datasets to study compositional trends in moist convective regions of Jupiter’s atmosphere.