HORIZONTAL AIR MOTIONS HOW WIND ARISES AT THE LAND AND OCEAN SURFACE DEFINITION: PRESSURE GRADIENT = DIFFERENCE IN PRESSURE FROM ONE POINT TO ANOTHER VERTICALLY, PRESSURE DECREASES EXPONENTIALLY, BUT HORIZONTALLY PRESSURE VARIES BY SMALL AMOUNTS, TYPICALLY 1 MILLIBAR PER 100 KM.
VERTICAL ATMOSPHERIC PRESSURE PROFILE
Pressure Records around the Earth Note, Hurricane Wilma, Oct set new Atlantic record at 882 mb.
Newton’s 1 st Law is applied here! Method of pressure measurement
NON-ROTATING EARTH MERIDINAL CIRCULATION
Remove the Earth and the spacecraft travels tangentially away from the Earth at > 7 km/sec.
MORE EXAMPLES OF ORBITS
The Earth rotates once each day, that is Ώ x number of seconds per day!
A CONSEQUENCE OF THE ROTATING EARTH:
WIND ON A ROTATING PLANET (EARTH) AND NEWTON’S FIRST LAW
EFFECT OF FRICTION ON DIRECTION OF WIND
DEFLECTION OF WIND DUE TO THE CORIOLIS FORCE IS LATITUDE DEPENDENT BECAUSE THE FORCE ITSELF DEPENDS ON LATITUDE.
WINDS ALOFT ARE DUE TO PRESSURE GRADIENT AND CORIOLIOS FORCE ACTING TOGETHER!
JET STREAM IS GEOSTROPHIC WIND PLUS THERMAL WIND
THERE ARE TWO COMPONENTS TO WINDS ALOFT.
WE KNOW THAT TEMPERATURE DIFFERENCES INDUCE PRESSURE CHANGES WITH HEIGHT.
JET STREAM OR ZONAL WINDS ARE SYNOPTIC AND UNDULATE
ACTUAL GLOBAL CIRCULATION DEPENDS UPON ROTATION OF EARTH