ATM 10 Lecture Notes - Lecture 14: Geostrophic Wind, Coriolis Force, Northern Hemisphere
25 Sep 2016
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Lecture 14: november 24, 2014: storm, lightning, tornadoes: storm, lightning, tornadoes. Enough heat energy goes up, overcomes negative area to become a storm: cape is at maximum temperature around 2pm, graupel collides with particles and separates. Friction occurs between surfaces that touch: coriolis force and wind force balance. To understand air motions, whether in blizzards, hurricanes, tornadoes, or dust devils, we need to examine forces. Four forces: pressure gradient force, coriolis force, friction force, centipetal/centrifugal force: pressure gradient force (pgf, vertical pgf is (1,000 to 10,000 times) greater than horizontal pgf, however, vertical pgf is mostly balanced out by the gravitation force. Thus, the motion in the atmosphere is dominated by horizontal winds, except for small scale weather systems: coriolis force (cof) is an apparent force in the atmosphere. Newton"s first law: a body in motion will stay in motion unless acted upon by an external force: cof depends on: the local rotation rate of your reference frame.
