Western winds and their participation in atmospheric circulation

2024 Author: Henry Conors | [email protected]. Last modified: 2024-02-12 02:40

Winds are horizontal, sometimes gusty, movement of air. They depend on pressure, move to where it is lower. By observing such a phenomenon, specialists can draw up a wind rose for a short and long time ahead, identify cycles and repetitions. Subsequently, both sailors and land dwellers are guided by them.

Western winds play an important role. They predominantly move tropical air to temperate latitudes. Thanks to this, the temperature in these territories is normalizing, becoming acceptable for agriculture and favorable for human life.

Atmospheric circulation, or Where do winds come from

The circulation of the atmosphere is due to the fact that certain parts of the earth's surface are heated unevenly. This process begins at the equator. Deserts and semi-deserts are located in the zone. Since there is almost no temperature difference, there are virtually no winds. In the tropics, they blow parallel to the equator, then, closer to temperate latitudes, they gradually change their direction.

The deviation from the equator, of course, varies. In the Northern Hemisphere, trade winds are formed that blowto the right. South - to the left. The directions of the westerly winds closer to temperate latitudes diverge in different directions, as well as the northeast.

This scheme may be violated due to uneven heating of water and earth surfaces. When the sea and the coast come into contact, winds appear that blow outside the laws of atmospheric circulation. These are large streams that change their direction depending on the season. They are called monsoons and carry moisture to the continents.

Mid-latitudes

Western winds are almost the only air currents in temperate latitudes. This is a unique scheme that boasts of its ideality. The fact is that in temperate latitudes there are warm and cold air masses. The first appear in the tropics, the second - in the territories of the polar regions. Because of their contact, cyclones and anticyclones appear. They carry air east from the west.

In temperate latitudes there is a belt with low atmospheric pressure. Therefore, air masses come here, and they are quite strong. Such winds have their own peculiarity (like the trade winds). They have an average deflection angle. This is due to the rotation of the planet (the Coriolis effect).

The phenomenon is also called western transfer. The fact is that half of the air masses are formed in the north, the other part - in the east. But they all blow in the same westerly direction. Their analogue in the Southern Hemisphere can be called the trade winds, but there is a difference between them. It lies in the fact that parts of the planet are not heated by the sun in the same way, and thereforewind direction is different.

Prevailing winds

They appear because there is a difference in atmospheric pressure, and also because of a difference in temperature. There are territories on the planet where both parameters are constant and the same. Therefore, prevailing winds appeared. They are also called predominant (or predominant). They are available almost all over the planet.

The prevailing northerly or westerly winds move in a particular direction. They create the circulation, or rotation, of the atmosphere.

To Eastern Europe and Asia they carry sea air from the Atlantic, sometimes rainfall. In the Southern Hemisphere, a westerly wind forms over the surface of the water in the ocean, then rushes to land at high speed.

Monsoons

Speaking about what kind of western wind, one should not lose sight of the monsoons. They form in the Northern Hemisphere on the eastern coasts. Western winds from temperate latitudes gradually begin to weaken after they are removed deep into the ocean. But they are being replaced by monsoon circulations. They are air currents that abruptly change their direction when winter changes into summer, and vice versa. In this they are fundamentally different from the prevailing winds, which do not have a change in the motion vector.

Monsoons are formed due to the difference in heating of land and seas. The winter northwest wind blows from the cold coasts of Asia and Canada. Its direction is a warm ocean that never freezes. There is also a summer, southeast wind. He takes hisIt starts in the ocean and moves to warmer land. In fact, in winter, the westerly wind that originated in the tropics, then moved to temperate latitudes, becomes the monsoon. Part of the equatorial air is carried away by natural currents almost to the very poles.

The role of westerly winds

The role of the wind rose cannot be overestimated. And each of the dominant streams is distinguished by its contribution to the life of man and nature:

Western winds, like the trade winds, help ships with sails (and there are quite a lot of them) to cross the oceans or move where they need to.
Air currents increase near the coasts, so they contribute to the formation of warm currents. Because of this, there is an exchange of waters in all oceans. If this does not happen, then stagnation will form. In fact, all aquatic flora and fauna will perish, and after it, humanity.

Finally, it should be noted that any western wind is directly involved in the global circulation of the atmosphere.

Conclusion

Thus, westerly winds prevail over the surface of the water in the entire oceans. But they also move on land. Since they provide the World Ocean with the flow and movement of water, it is very difficult to overestimate their importance and role in nature. We can call such winds dominant. Without them, there will be no atmospheric circulation and no water cycle.