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The dominant winds are the trends in direction of wind with the highest speed over a particular point on the Earth's surface at any given time. A region's prevailing and dominant winds are the result of global patterns of movement in the Earth's atmosphere. [1] In general, winds are predominantly easterly at low latitudes globally.
The largest ocean gyres are wind-driven, meaning that their locations and dynamics are controlled by the prevailing global wind patterns: easterlies at the tropics and westerlies at the midlatitudes. These wind patterns result in a wind stress curl that drives Ekman pumping in the subtropics (resulting in downwelling) and Ekman suction in ...
If the Earth were tidally locked to the Sun, solar heating would cause winds across the mid-latitudes to blow in a poleward direction, away from the subtropical ridge. . However, the Coriolis effect caused by the rotation of Earth tends to deflect poleward winds eastward from north (to the right) in the Northern Hemisphere and eastward from south (to the left) in the Southern Hemisph
Wind is the natural movement of air or other gases relative to a planet's surface. Winds occur on a range of scales, from thunderstorm flows lasting tens of minutes, to local breezes generated by heating of land surfaces and lasting a few hours, to global winds resulting from the difference in absorption of solar energy between the climate ...
The authors argue that global warming is a likely causative factor in the weakening of the wind pattern. [15] However, a 2011 study from The Twentieth Century Reanalysis Project shows that, aside from El Niño–Southern Oscillation cycles, the overall speed and direction of the Walker circulation remained steady between 1871 and 2008.
Idealised depiction (at equinox) of large-scale atmospheric circulation on Earth Long-term mean precipitation by month. Atmospheric circulation is the large-scale movement of air and together with ocean circulation is the means by which thermal energy is redistributed on the surface of the Earth.
Deforestation can also modify the release of chemical compounds that influence clouds, and by changing wind patterns. [68] In tropic and temperate areas the net effect is to produce significant warming, and forest restoration can make local temperatures cooler. [67]
For the six SRES marker scenarios, IPCC (2007:7–8) gave a "best estimate" of global mean temperature increase (2090–2099 relative to the period 1980–1999) of 1.8 °C to 4.0 °C. [20] Over the same time period, the "likely" range (greater than 66% probability, based on expert judgement) for these scenarios was for a global mean temperature ...