Wind, Weather, and You (Part 1)

The Science of Meterology

Today I want to talk about global wind patterns and weather and how this effects ecosystems throughout the world! I know, winds sound boring. But they're huge global systems that drive the ecosystems and create all the terrestrial niches for the floral and fauna of the world. Hopefully by the end of this you'll understand why every desert and forest is where it is and appreciate that tiny breeze on your face.

What you perhaps don't know is that wind that's blowing right now is part of a process starting thousands of miles away from you. You're experiencing a fight between the frozen poles and the toasty tropics beneath the suns zenith.


First things first. A quick brushing up on some physics that paramount to meteorology (The study of weather and climate)

Convection currents and moisture

Hot air rises and cold air sinks. You experience this daily whether its cleaning out your attic on a hot day, or trying to heat the bottom floor of your cold loft apartment. A packet of hot air generally rises in the atmosphere until it cools off or is obstructed and moves laterally.

Hot air holds more water than cold air. Tighter packed molecules of cold air can't hold enough water between each molecule compared to the fast moving molecules in hot air

If a hot packet of air is released it will rise in the atmosphere until cooling off. The cooler air losses its ability to hold as much moisture in the air condensating any excess water packed between the molecules out of the air. In most cases this creates clouds. If the lift upward is fast enough or there's enough water in the air, rain is formed.

A more complicated physics explanation

The Coriolis Effect

Imagine you are on a carousel going clockwise and you roll a ball from the carousel to your friend whose sitting across from you. Everytime you roll the ball it never rolls straight to him. Instead it rolls to his left. If you were going counter clockwise it would roll right. Now imagine you're trying to do this but on an entire spinning planet. A person standing on the northern hemisphere would always have things shift to his right when moving north to south. And always to his left when moving south to north. You won't experience this effect as a small speck on a giant rotating sphere, but you can observe it on much larger objects like pressure systems, wind, and hurricanes.

As the middle of the carousel is spinning faster than the farthest edges the balls degree shift increases as it goes towards the middle and decreases on the edges. This is why the Coriolis Effect is essentially zero at the equator. That in very simple terms is the Coriolis Effect. It is not a force like gravity but an effect of living on a rotating planet.

You can see this beautifully in this image of 150 years of tropical storms and hurricanes from NOAA.

The effect only shifts the path slightly till 30*, at which point it takes over more and more until many storms are 180* from their original 'trajectory'

What does it tell us?
This tells us that large systems will 'appear' to shift to the right in the northern hemisphere and shift to the left in the southern hemisphere.
What does it not tell us?
Why toilets flow in a particular direction. The Coriolis Effect is not a force and only appears on systems large enough to perceive it, not your tiny toilet. Most toilets flush in a particular direction depending on the manufacture and hydrodynamics. Anything you've ever heard about this is bogus and shows a lack of understanding about what is the Coriolis Effect.