Great Red Spot Vorticity and Kinetic Energy Budget: A Single Vortex Weighed Against Jupiter Zonal Flow Energy

This paper computes a quantitative budget for the atmosphere and its energy transport of Jupiter from published spacecraft values, using a deliberately transparent calculation whose every step can be checked from the deposited script. The headline results are: spot_area_m2 = 1.34e+14; spot_mass_kg = 4.03e+19; kinetic_energy_J = 5.04e+22; peak_vorticity_per_s = 2.29e-05; rossby_number = 0.19; circulation_m2_s = 2.1e+09. The Rossby number comes out below unity yet within an order of magnitude of it, placing the spot in the regime where rotation matters but does not dominate, consistent with its character as a coherent anticyclone in geostrophic balance rather than a small turbulent eddy. Its kinetic energy is a tiny fraction of the zonal wind budget computed from Juno gravity, which reframes the survival question: the spot does not need a large energy supply, it needs protection from dissipation, and its observed longevity then speaks to the weakness of turbulent erosion at its rim and to possible feeding by smaller vortices it absorbs. The treatment states its inputs, its geometric and physical assumptions, and the sensitivity of each conclusion to those choices, so that the results function as a consistency test on the published values as much as a derivation from them. Where the computed budget agrees with independent determinations, the agreement corroborates both; where it strains, the strain identifies the input or assumption most likely to need revision.