Why is Saturn's atmosphere less stormy than Jupiter's?

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nukeman
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Hi everyone,

Title says it all. Is it because of the temp difference? Is it because has more mass, so is it because Jupiter has a larger atmosphere?

Thanks,
 
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Saturn has less mass than Jupiter.

And yes I believe it's due to its proximity to the Sun, and the lower amount of energy it receives to fuel convection currents and all the good stuff that goes into making weather.
 
Mu naught said:
Saturn has less mass than Jupiter.

And yes I believe it's due to its proximity to the Sun, and the lower amount of energy it receives to fuel convection currents and all the good stuff that goes into making weather.

If this were the only force at work, we would expect atmospheric activity to fall off monotonically as distance with the sun increases. It does not. Neptune has a very active atmosphere, for example.

Surely this contributes, but it is not the whole, or even the majority, of the story for explaining the differences in the Jovian planets' atmospheres.
 
I'd say there are too many factors and variables to really say why. Differences in mass, distance from the sun, gravity effects from moons, makeup of the atmospheres, and possibly a thousand other things would have an effect.
 
Jupiter also has a very hot core [due to mass], which also fuels atmospheric effects.