I always experience winds on our planet and I know it’s caused by different pressure areas. What causes wind to keep perpetually going and not evening out in mostly an equilibrium with the only changes being caused by moving things such as cars.
In: Planetary Science
Equilibrium in a system very often implies some kind of steady state. In the simplest systems, this is when a system is mostly “closed” ie nothing significant enters or leaves the system. There are, of course, also dynamic steady states but that usually involves a “big picture” view – the dynamic “steady state” usually involves turbulence or chaos in the margins. (Think of a river – at a big picture level, water flows at a steady rate and nearly fixed volume but looked at closely, the river has vortices, eddies and waves that are constantly changing)
This is somewhat similar to the earth, it constantly receives energy from the sun and this cycles between day and night. And that energy heats up stuff differently – water and land don’t heat up at the same rate. This means the air also heats up at different rates. This leads to temperature and therefore pressure differences that cause winds. At a big picture level, these winds are fairly predictable (like an equilibrium state) because of the earth rotation – broadly west to east. But, like a river, looked at closer there will be turbulent behavior. To the earth, as a whole, this is not significant but at a human level, things like tornadoes and hurricanes are a big deal.
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