why is there generally less wind at night time than day time?
In: Earth Science
Think of wind as a proxy of solar.
When the sun is out, it’s heating the earth. When clouds cover a region, they don’t get the heat.
Then, through the process of osmosis, the pressure system moves from high to low, and the temperature equalizes via wind.
At night there is no heating taking place
During daytime the sun warms up the Earth’s surface, and the surface in turn warms up the layer of air next to it. This warm air is lighter than the colder air above it, so it rises up, displacing the cold air and forcing it to move to settle down somewhere else. This movement of air makes wind. During nighttime everything’s reversed – there’s warmer air from daytime above and colder air in contact with the rapidly cooling Earth’s surface below. This setup doesn’t produce any air movements, since colder air is heavier than warm air and so it stays put.
The wind tends to decrease after sunset because at night the surface of the Earth cools faster than the air above the surface.
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