Chapter 2 of 10All chapters
Chapter 2 of 10
The engine
Uneven heating drives everything.
Why air moves
The tropics receive more solar energy than the poles. That imbalance drives circulation as the atmosphere and oceans move heat towards the poles.
- Warm air rises, cools, and sinks elsewhere, creating pressure differences.
- Wind is air flowing from high to low pressure.
The Coriolis effect
The Earth rotation deflects moving air, right in the northern hemisphere and left in the southern. That is why weather systems spin and why prevailing winds run in bands.