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The trade winds or easterlies are permanent east-to-west prevailing winds that flow in the Earth's equatorial region. The trade winds blow mainly from the northeast in the Northern Hemisphere and from the southeast in the Southern Hemisphere , strengthening during the winter and when the Arctic oscillation is in its warm phase.
Like trade winds and unlike the westerlies, these prevailing winds blow from the east to the west, and are often weak and irregular. [15] Due to the low sun angle, cold air builds up and subsides at the pole creating surface high-pressure areas, forcing an outflow of air toward the equator; [16] that outflow is deflected westward by the ...
This established the standard Spanish route to the Americas: south to the Canary Islands, west on the trade winds to the Caribbean, then beat against the wind north of Cuba using the Florida Current to the Gulf Steam, then use it to go north to the westerlies which led directly home. Since wind systems move north in summer and south in winter ...
George Hadley (12 February 1685 – 28 June 1768) was an English lawyer and amateur meteorologist who proposed the atmospheric mechanism by which the trade winds are sustained, which is now named in his honour as Hadley circulation. As a key factor in ensuring that European sailing vessels reached North American shores, understanding the trade ...
English: Edmond Halley's map of the trade winds, from (1686). "An Historical Account of the Trade Winds, and Monsoons, Observable in the Seas between and near the Tropicks, with an Attempt to Assign the Phisical Cause of the Said Wind". Philosophical Transactions of the Royal Society 16: 153-168.
The westerlies (blue) and trade winds (yellow and brown) The general atmospheric circulation. Trade winds (red), westerlies (white) and the South Pacific anticyclone (blue) [1] The westerlies, anti-trades, [2] or prevailing westerlies, are prevailing winds from the west toward the east in the middle latitudes between 30 and 60 degrees latitude.
In the Northern Hemisphere, trade winds blow from northeast to southwest, from North and South America toward Asia, between the equator and 30 degrees north latitude. Typically, the trade winds continue across the Pacific, unless something gets in their way, like an island. Hawaiʻi's high mountains present a substantial obstacle to the trade ...
Weaker easterly trade winds result in a surge of warm surface waters to the east and reduced ocean upwelling on the equator. In turn, this leads to warmer sea surface temperatures (called El Niño), a weaker Walker circulation (an east-west overturning circulation in the atmosphere) and even weaker trade winds. Ultimately the warm waters in the ...