# Internal energy dissipation in Enceladus's ocean from tides and libration and the role of inertial waves

## TL;DR

This study models energy dissipation in Enceladus's subsurface ocean due to tides and libration, finding libration as the main contributor but still insufficient to explain observed heat, with inertial wave resonances potentially amplifying dissipation.

## Contribution

It extends previous models by including libration effects and demonstrates how inertial wave resonances can enhance tidal dissipation in icy moons.

## Key findings

- Libration dominates linear energy dissipation in Enceladus's ocean.
- Libration-induced dissipation is about 0.001 GW, much less than observed 10 GW.
- Resonances with inertial modes can significantly increase dissipation.

## Abstract

Enceladus is characterised by a south polar hot spot associated with a large outflow of heat, the source of which remains unclear. We compute the viscous dissipation resulting from tidal and libration forcing in the moon's subsurface ocean using the linearised Navier-Stokes equation in a 3-dimensional spherical model. We conclude that libration is the dominant cause of dissipation at the linear order, providing up to about 0.001 GW of heat to the ocean, which remains insufficient to explain the (about) 10 GW observed by Cassini. We also illustrate how resonances with inertial modes can significantly augment the dissipation. Our work is an extension to Rovira-Navarro et al. [2019] to include the effects of libration. The model developed here is readily applicable to the study of other moons and planets.