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
Both are right. The Earth’s rotation causes the Coriolis effects, which is why this happens.
When you look at the earth, and the sunlight that hits it, where does sunlight hit most? The equator. This, the equator is hotter. So now factor into this that hot fluids rise and expand, while cold fluids sink and contract. This is where pretty much all currents and wind and such come from, this convection mechanism. So the hot air at the equator roses, then something has to come in and take its place, that’s cooler air from the north and south. So you can draw lines indicating this. But now that the colder air is leaving the higher latitudes, and the hot air high up is cooling, there is another pressure difference. The (formerly) hot air sinks to replace the cold air that replaced it. And now the cycle is complete. You should have in your mind a vision of a loop. At the equator, air gets hot, goes up, goes north or south, cools down, drops, then goes south or north (opposite of the first one).
Now let’s introduce the spin of the earth, noting that the earth “spins” faster at the equator than near the poles. This is because the land at the equator is further from the axis of rotation than the poles are. Remember, no matter where you are on the earth, it will complete one full rotation in 24 hours! This means the land at the equator must be traveling faster to make it all the way around in that time!
Go back to those cells. The stuff near the equator is moving fast. The stuff away is not. So as that stuff that’s low and cold moves towards the equator, the equator is moving faster underneath it. This looks like, to people on the surface, like westward blowing winds. Voila, trade winds!
Oh but what about that fast moving warm air? Well it’s now over a higher latitude and thus is going faster than the ground in the eastern direction. Oh hey it’s a jet stream!
There are other ways to look at as well and I’m sure others will chime in.
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