How does Coriolis force work and how does it effect us on earth? What are some applications of Coriolis force?
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Say you’re standing at the equator. Because the Earth rotates, you’re actually moving west to east at a little over 1000 mph. Everything near you is moving at the same speed, so you really don’t notice it.
Now your buddy is standing at 45° north latitude. *He’s* moving west to east at about 700 mph. Everything is moving together, so you both think you’re just standing still relative to each other.
You yell “hey, catch!” and whip a baseball straight to him. But by the time that baseball reaches his latitude, it’s still moving 1000 mph west-to-east, or about 300 mph faster than he’s moving. To both of you, it looks like the baseball inexplicably veered off to the east.
He says “you suck at this, let me show you how it’s done” and throws one straight to you. By the time it reaches your latitude, it’s going 300 mph slower than you are, and it seems that it veered to the west. You both go “wtf?”
That’s the Coriolis effect in a nutshell. Here’s what it does in real life:
Say you have a warm spot in the ocean. Warm air rises, and so the air at this warm spot rises, leaving a partial vacuum behind. Air from all directions flows in towards that spot. Air from the north veers west while air from the south veers east. So all this air that *ought* to have just flowed straight to the low pressure area winds up circling it instead.
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