Why do the winds on Earth move the way that they do?

Question

I mean the winds as globally, not local. I know it has to do with the way that the Earth spins.

Oh and I already know about how the low air pressure rises and the high air pressure takes it place which causes wind but I need to know why they are moving a certain direction.

Answer 1

Yes you’re correct! The earth rotation deflects the winds to the right in the northern hemisphere and deflects to the left in the southern hemisphere. This is called the Coriolis Effect. Most people think Coriolis Effect is a force, it's not it's just an influence that cause apparent objects to flow the way they do. This is what makes low pressure and high pressure wind rotate in different directions.

For example: Say you over San Francisco. Say you travel vertically and stayed in the sky for at least 1 hour, but when you come down San Francisco would have moved east several miles away. This is what the Coriolis Effect does.

Answer 2

The earth receives a maximum of solar radiation in the equatorial region and a mimimum quantity of it in the polar regions.Because of this,a temperature gradient is created from the equator to the poles.If the earth's surface were uniform and if the earth were non-rotating,a flow of air from the poles towards the equator at surface levels and a reverse flow aloft would have resulted due to the above temperature gradient.
Because of the rotation of the earth,the air moving to higher latitudes will become westerly(due to coriolis force) and gain in speed and the air moving towards the equator will become easterly and should have more and more increased easterly speeds .Since wind speeds cannot increase beyond certain limits,the above envisaged circulation breaks down into a circulation with three cells.Two direct circulations,one in the tropics and another in the polar regions in each hemisphere are created.The third one is a reverse circulation in the middle latitudes.These three global circulations are called Hadley cell,Ferner cell and Polar cell.

Answer 3

High and low pressure areas along with the Coriolis force affect the general global wind patterns. The patterns vary by latitude.

Here is a link describing the effect by latitude and in more detail.

http://www.windpower.org/en/tour/wres/globwin.htm

Here is another discussion of the global wind patterns.

http://www.fi.edu/wright/again/wings.avkids.com/wings.avkids.com/Book/Atmosphere/instructor/wind-01.html

Answer 4

yes the winds in the northern hemisphere go east
the southern go west