What causes the earth's wind patterns?
Answers
Large global wind systems are created by the uneven heating of the Earth's surface. ... Unequal heating of the Earth's surface also forms large global wind patterns. In area near the equator, the sun is almost directly overhead for most of the year. Warm air rises at the equator and moves toward the poles.
Answer:
Large global wind systems are created by the uneven heating of the Earth’s surface. These global wind systems, in turn, drive the oceans’ surface currents. To understand how global winds form and drive the major ocean currents, you need to know that wind is the basically the movement of air from an area of high pressure to an area of low pressure. Pressure is force per unit area, and air pressure is simply the weight (force) of the column of air above a particular location, per unit area. Air pressure therefore depends on elevation or altitude (higher up means less air above), the average temperature of the air above the particular location (hot air is lighter than cold air), and what the air's composition is.
Unequal heating of the Earth’s surface also forms large global wind patterns. In area near the equator, the sun is almost directly overhead for most of the year. Warm air rises at the equator and moves toward the poles. At the poles, the cooler air sinks and moves back toward the equator. However, it is not this simple. Global winds do not move directly from north to south or south to north because the Earth rotates. All winds in the Northern Hemisphere appear to curve to right as they move. In the southern hemisphere, winds appear to curve to the left. This is known as the Coriolis effect, which is the apparent shift in the path of any fluid or object moving about the surface of the Earth due to the rotation of the Earth.