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Rising and Sinking Air

Since warm air is less dense and creates less air pressure, it will rise; cold air is
denser and creates greater air pressure, and so it will sink. When warm air rises,
cooler air will often move in to replace it, so wind often moves from areas where it's
colder to areas where it's warmer. The greater the difference between the high and
low pressure or the shorter the distance between the high and low pressure areas,
the faster the wind will blow. Wind also blows faster if there's nothing in its way, so
winds are usually stronger over oceans or flat ground. Meteorologists can forecast
the speed and direction of wind by measuring air pressure with a barometer.
Wind Direction
Although wind blows from areas of high pressure to areas of low pressure, it doesn't
blow in a straight line. That's because the earth is rotating. In the northern
hemisphere, the spin of the earth causes winds to curve to the right (to the left in
the southern hemisphere). This is called the coriolis effect. So in the northern
hemisphere, winds blow clockwise around an area of high pressure and counterclockwise around low pressure.
after Gustave Coriolis, a French engineer and mathematician who showed that such
a force could be used to allow the use of the ordinary laws of motion in a rotating
reference frame), and as a result the effects are referred to as Coriolis effects.
The speed of the Earths rotation causes the general flow to
break up into
three distinct cells in each hemisphere. [Figure 11-5] In
the
Northern Hemisphere, the warm air at the equator
rises
upward from the surface, travels northward, and is
deflected eastward by the rotation of the Earth.
By
the time it has traveled one-third of the distance
from the equator to the North Pole, it is no
longer moving northward, but eastward. This air
cools and sinks in a belt-like area at about 30
latitude, creating an area of high pressure as it
sinks toward the surface. Then, it flows southward
along the surface back toward the equator. Coriolis
force bends the flow to the right, thus creating the
northeasterly trade winds that prevail from 30 latitude to the equator. Similar
forces create circulation cells that encircle the Earth between 30 and 60 latitude,
and between 60 and the poles. This circulation pattern results in the prevailing
westerly winds in the conterminous United States. Circulation patterns are further
complicated by seasonal changes, differences between the surfaces of continents
and oceans, and other factors such as frictional forces caused by the topography of
the Earths surface which modify the movement of the air in the atmosphere. For
example, within 2,000 feet of the ground, the friction between the surface and the
atmosphere slows the moving air. The wind is diverted from its path because the
frictional force reduces the Coriolis force. Thus, the wind direction at the surface
varies somewhat from the wind direction just a few thousand feet above the Earth.

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