Eli5: If heat is energy, how does cold wind exist? How can air move (have cold gusts of wind) if it’s not hot? Where does the energy for movement of cold air come from?

Question

I asked this in school and the teacher thought I was trolling and didn’t answer me. It’s been like 20 years and I still think about it, it drives me crazy lol.

In: Planetary Science

Answer 1

Hot air rises. When it does, it can’t just leave a vacuum of nothingness behind in the place where it was. Instead, other cooler air gets sucked in from the sides. By definition that air is colder, otherwise that would be the air that’s rising. The result is air on the surface moving from areas of relatively high to low pressure. At an ELI5 level [it looks like this.](https://www.e-education.psu.edu/earth111/sites/www.e-education.psu.edu.earth111/files/Module2/Earth111Mod2GWImage5.png)

So the energy to move the cooler air still came from heat, just in a more indirect way than you were considering.

TLDR: the wind doesn’t blow, it sucks.