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Due to the Coriolis force, low-pressure systems in the Northern hemisphere, like Typhoon Nanmadol (left), rotate counterclockwise, and in the Southern hemisphere, low-pressure systems like Cyclone Darian (right) rotate clockwise. Schematic representation of flow around a low-pressure area in the Northern Hemisphere. The Rossby number is low, so ...
The rotation of the earth results in a "force" being felt by the water moving from the high to the low, known as Coriolis force. The Coriolis force acts at right angles to the flow, and when it balances the pressure gradient force, the resulting flow is known as geostrophic. As stated above, the direction of flow is with the high pressure to ...
The effect of friction, between the air and the land, breaks the geostrophic balance. Friction slows the flow, lessening the effect of the Coriolis force. As a result, the pressure gradient force has a greater effect and the air still moves from high pressure to low pressure, though with great deflection.
The Coriolis force deflects the air movement to the right in the northern hemisphere and the left in the southern one, which makes the winds parallel to the isobars on an elevation in pressure card. [1] It is also referred as the geostrophic wind. [2] Pressure differences depend, in turn, on the average temperature in the air column.
The geostrophic wind component is the result of the balance between Coriolis force and pressure gradient force. It flows parallel to isobars and approximates the flow above the atmospheric boundary layer in the midlatitudes. [4]
An example of the impact of the westerlies is when dust plumes, originating in the Gobi Desert combine with pollutants and spread large distances downwind, or eastward, into North America. [8] The westerlies can be particularly strong, especially in the Southern Hemisphere, where there is less land in the middle to cause the progression of west ...
[14] [15] High-pressure systems are alternatively referred to as anticyclones. On weather maps, high-pressure centers are associated with the letter H in English, [16] or A in Spanish, [17] because alta is the Spanish word for high, within the isobar with the highest pressure value. On constant pressure upper level charts, it is located within ...
Gyres are caused by the Coriolis effect; planetary vorticity, horizontal friction and vertical friction determine the circulatory patterns from the wind stress curl . [ 1 ] Gyre can refer to any type of vortex in an atmosphere or a sea , [ 2 ] even one that is human-created, but it is most commonly used in terrestrial oceanography to refer to ...