Meteorology

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Webquest – Winds

 

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Introduction:
 

Winds are essentially an exchange of atmospheric mass from one location to another.  This exchange is in response to energy imbalances across the earth’s surface.  These energy balances derive from a number of related phenomena such as changing solar incidence, solar path lengths though the atmosphere, day-length differences, beam spreading, etc.  You should already be aware of the causes of spatial energy imbalances.  Suffice it to say, these imbalances in energy receipt cause temperature imbalances.  Spatial temperature imbalances equate to atmospheric pressure imbalances.  Again, you should already be aware of what atmospheric pressure is, but to recap, it is essentially of weight of the overlying atmosphere (as a refresher, consult and, if your interested, complete the pressure activities exercise at ).  Where areas experience greater (lesser) energy receipt, warmer (cooler) temperatures occur. This leads to a less (more) dense overlying atmosphere and lower (higher) atmospheric pressure.  When energy balances occur, winds transport atmospheric mass from areas of greater pressure towards areas of lower pressure.  But, as we will see, more is actually involved regarding the final wind.

 Some wind rules: 1.  Winds are always named for the direction they come from.  2.  Always put your back to the wind when thinking about them. 

 
Task 1 – Understanding Wind Forces:

 Your mission, should you choose to accept it, is to investigate the forces acting upon wind.  Everyone will be responsible for understanding particular phenomena associated with winds, ultimately understanding each force in the “wind equation” (Wind = ___, + ___, +___ + ___).

Next, further detail aspects of upper air winds.  In particular to investigate critical aspects of “Geostrophic flow” and “Gradient winds” and compare these to “surface (or boundary layer) winds”.

 

Task 2 – Understanding Upper Air and Surface Winds:

  

Pertinent Questions:

 

 1.  What dictates the initial wind direction and why?

 

2.  What dictates initial wind speeds and why?

 

3.  Why do moving objects “deflect” in the atmosphere?

 4.  Why is this deflection important to the sustenance of migratory pressure systems across earth’s surface?

 

5.  Why do moving objects deflect at a maximum at the poles and not at all at the equator?

 

6.  Why would an object moving from east to west (or west to east) deflect?

 

7.  Why would an object moving from the equator to the North Pole deflect to the “right”?

 

8.  Why does the speed of the moving object partially determine its deflection?

 

9.  Why does the latitude of the moving object partially determine its deflection?

 

10.  Why is Coriolis force unimportant for small-scale rotations?

 

11.  Why is trajectory curvature important to the resulting path?

 

12.  How does increasing (or decreasing) the amount of curvature affect the resulting path?

 

13.  How does the speed affect the resulting path when curvature is considered?

 

14.  What role does friction play in determining the resulting curvature?

 

15.  What if no deflection or friction of any kind occurred?

 

16.  Why do upper air winds react differently?

 17.  How do upper air winds and the resulting forces change when comparing straight wind flow and curved wind flow.

 18.  How are surface winds different from upper air winds?

 19.  Why are upper air winds faster than surface winds?

 

20.  What about resulting trajectories?