I tried to Google around and didn’t find an answer.
It’s seems there are conflicts with the explanations about earth winds.
One says winds go west to east because of earth rotation and others says its east to west because of Coriolis effect.
Can someone explain it to me simply please?
In: 71
The Coriolis force deflect everything that moves on earth (wind, airplane, water, ect). In the northern hemisphere, this is to the right of the direction of movement (and to the Left in the southern hemisphere). The reason why is a whole different set of explanation, just accept it as truth for now.
In the northern hemisphere, if the wind is blowing directly toward the poles, it will be deflected to the right (east), so the actually wind movement is south-west to north-east. If the wind is blowing from the pole to the equator (you have to face the same direction as the wind, aka standing at the pole and looking at the equator), right of that is west, so the actual wind is north-east to south-west.
So both answer is correct, the Coriolis force can defect the wind in either direction. In the North we have both westerlies and easterlies as a result of the Coriolis force. The trade wind blows toward the equator in the north (North to South) whereas the jetstream is driven by pressure gradient that push air toward the pole (South to North). The Coriolis force push both of them to the right of the direction they are moving in, resulting is both East to West and West to East wind)
Latest Answers