The Sun's differential rotation is controlled by high-latitude baroclinically unstable inertial modes

Abstract

Rapidly rotating fluids have a rotation profile which depends only on the distance from the rotation axis, in accordance with the Taylor-Proudman theorem. Although the Sun was expected to be such a body, helioseismology showed that the rotation rate in the convection zone is closer to constant on radii. It has been postulated that this deviation is due to the poles being warmer than the equator by a few degrees. Using numerical simulations, we show that the pole-to-equator temperature difference cannot exceed 7 Kelvin as a result of the back-reaction of the high-latitude baroclinically unstable inertial modes. The observed amplitudes of the modes further indicate that this maximum temperature difference is reached in the Sun. We conclude that the Sun's latitudinal differential rotation reaches its maximum allowed value.

52 pages, 21 figures, 2 tables. Published in Science Advances on 27 Mar 2024. The authors' version

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Cited by in corpus (4)

• Doppler velocity of $m=1$ high-latitude inertial mode over the last five sunspot cycles
• Assessing the validity of the anelastic and Boussinesq approximations to model solar inertial modes
• Oscillations of the solar photospheric magnetic field caused by the m = 1 high-latitude inertial mode
• Effects of the radiative interior on solar inertial modes