CLIMATOLOGY, ASSINGMENT N0 2

Fatima Jinnah Women University

BS Environmentalist Science
Climatology
Assignment No 2
Submitted to:
Dr. Sheikh Saeed Ahmed
Submitted by:
Asia Ayyaz (2019-B.ENV-004)
Submission Date:
2nd May, 2021

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Contents
Introduction: Movement Of Earth................................................................................................................. 3
The Earth’s Rotation And Wind Movement ................................................................................................. 3
Wind.............................................................................................................................................................. 4
The Pressure Gradient Force (PGE).............................................................................................................. 4
Idealized General Circulation On A Rotating Planet .................................................................................... 4
1. Hadley Cell ........................................................................................................................................... 5
2. Ferrel Cell ............................................................................................................................................. 6
3. Polar Cell .............................................................................................................................................. 7
Plantery Wind System................................................................................................................................... 8
Surface Wind System .................................................................................................................................... 9
Upper Level Winds ..................................................................................................................................... 11
Refernces..................................................................................................................................................... 12

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INTRODUCTION: MOVEMENT OF EARTH

The main factor influencing the climate of a region is latitude because different latitudes receive different
amounts of solar radiation.

1. Rotation of Earth
The spinning of the Earth around its axis is called ‘rotation’. The axis has an angle of 2312∘ and is
perpendicular to the plane of Earth’s orbit. This means, Earth is tilted on its axis, and because of this tilt,
the northern and southern hemispheres lean in a direction away from the Sun. The rotation of the Earth
divides it into a lit-up half and a dark half, which gives rise to day and night. The direction of the earth
rotation depends on the direction of viewing. When viewed looking down from the North Pole, Earth spins
counterclockwise. On the contrary, when viewed looking down from the South Pole, the earth spins in the
clockwise direction.

2. Revolution of Earth
The movement of the Earth around the Sun in a fixed
path is called a revolution. The Earth revolves from
west to east i.e, in the anticlockwise direction. The
Earth completes one revolution around the Sun in
one year or precisely in 365.242 days. The
revolution speed of the earth is 30 km/s-1

THE EARTH’S ROTATION AND

WIND MOVEMENT
When the Earth rotates on its axis, it prevents air currents from moving in a straight line north and south
from the equator.Instead, it results in one of the effects of rotation of the Earth: the Coriolis Effect. This
deflects winds to the right in the Northern Hemisphere and to the left in the Southern Hemisphere. The
global air circulation and the Coriolis Effect transfer warm air from low latitudes and cold air from high
latitudes as wind moves from high pressure to low pressure.
These global wind and pressure belts are important to Earth's
climate, and determine the local geographical pattern of
precipitation and temperature. The reason behind the global
wind patterns is ultimately due to a differentially heated,
rotating Earth. The differential heating of Earth continually
causes an imbalance in air pressure and temperature around the
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world, which in turn causes a continuous general circulation of winds that attempt to restore balance.While
actual winds in a given place and time may differ from the average general circulation, the average can
provide an explanation for how and why the winds prevail from a particular direction in a certain place.

WIND
Wind is caused by differences of pressure in the Earth's atmosphere. Winds are simply the transfer of
atmospheric mass between an area of excess mass and an area containing less mass. The transfer occurs
because there is an excess of atmospheric mass in one location and a lack of mass in another. Places where
there is extra air have higher pressure, and places that have less air have lower pressure. Air moves in
relation to pressure imbalances in either the vertical or the horizontal. Fluids always move from areas of
higher concentration to areas of lower concentration, in accordance with the second law of thermodynamics,
unless acted on by some other force.

THE PRESSURE GRADIENT FORCE (PGE)

The pressure gradient force works to move blobs of air from higher pressure toward lower pressure. The
strength of this pressure gradient determines how fast the wind moves from higher pressure toward lower
pressure. A stronger pressure gradient will cause stronger wind. The pressure gradient force (PGF) initially
causes air motion and is generated from pressure inequalities across space. Although pressure inequalities
occur both in the vertical (lower pressure always exists at higher elevations) and the horizontal, we
concentrate on the horizontal first. When pressure differences occur across any distance, air moves in an
attempt to equalize the pressure inequality. The PGF induces air to move laterally from one location to
another. If it could act alone, the PGF would always produce motion from an area of higher pressure toward
an area of lower pressure. The PGF not only determines wind direction, but it also dictates initial wind
speed. The speed depends on the pressure gradient.

IDEALIZED GENERAL CIRCULATION ON A ROTATING PLANET

The wind belts girdling the planet are organised into three cells in each hemisphere: the Hadley cell, the
Ferrel cell, and the polar cell. Those cells exist in both the northern and southern hemispheres. The vast
bulk of the atmospheric motion occurs in the Hadley cell. The high pressure systems acting on the Earth's
surface are balanced by the low pressure systems elsewhere. As a result, there is a balance of forces acting
on the Earth's surface The horse latitudes are an area of high pressure at about 30° to 35° latitude (north or
south) where winds diverge into the adjacent zones of Hadley or Ferrel cells, and which typically have light
winds, sunny skies, and little precipitation

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1. HADLEY CELL
The atmospheric circulation pattern that George Hadley described was an attempt to explain the trade
winds. The Hadley cell is a closed circulation loop which begins at the equator. There, moist air is warmed
by the Earth's surface, decreases in density and rises. A similar air mass rising on the other side of the
equator forces those rising air masses to move poleward. The rising air creates a low pressure zone near the
equator. As the air moves poleward, it
cools, becomes denser, and descends at
about the 30th parallel, creating a high-
pressure area. The descended air then
travels toward the equator along the
surface, replacing the air that rose from
the equatorial zone, closing the loop of
the Hadley cell. The poleward
movement of the air in the upper part of
the troposphere deviates toward the
east, caused by the coriolis acceleration
(a manifestation of conservation of

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angular momentum). At the ground level,

however, the movement of the air toward
the equator in the lower troposphere
deviates toward the west, producing a
wind from the east. The winds that flow
to the west (from the east, easterly wind)
at the ground level in the Hadley cell are
called the Trade Winds.

Though the Hadley cell is described as

located at the equator, in the northern
hemisphere it shifts to higher latitudes in June and July and toward lower latitudes in December and January,
which is the result of the Sun's heating of the surface. The zone where the greatest heating takes place is
called the "thermal equator". As the southern hemisphere summer is December to March, the movement of
the thermal equator to higher southern latitudes takes place then. The Hadley system provides an example
of a thermally direct circulation. The power of the Hadley system, considered as a heat engine, is estimated
at 200 terawatts.

2. FERREL CELL
A Ferrel Cell is a circulation pattern named for William Ferrel (1817–1891), an American meteorologist
who discovered the effects of the Earth's motion in wind systems. Part of the air rising at 60° latitude
diverges at high altitude toward the poles and creates the polar cell. The rest moves toward the equator
where it collides at 30° latitude with the high-level air of the Hadley cell. There it subsides and strengthens
the high pressure ridges beneath. A large part of the energy that drives the Ferrel cell is provided by the
polar and Hadley cells circulating on either side and that drag the Ferrel cell with it.

The air of the Ferrel cell that descends at 30° latitude returns poleward at the ground level, and as it does
so it deviates toward the east. In the upper
atmosphere of the Ferrel cell, the air moving
toward the equator deviates toward the west.
Both of those deviations, as in the case of the
Hadley and polar cells, are driven by
conservation of angular momentum. As a
result, just as the easterly Trade Winds are

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found below the Hadley cell, the Westerlies are found beneath the Ferrel cell.

 The Ferrel cell is weak, because it has neither a strong source of heat nor a strong sink, so the
airflow and temperatures within it are variable. For this reason, the mid-latitudes are sometimes
known as the "zone of mixing."
 The Hadley and polar cells are truly closed loops, the Ferrel cell is not, and the telling point is in
the Westerlies, which are more formally known as "the Prevailing Westerlies." The easterly Trade
Winds and the polar easterlies have nothing over which to prevail, as their parent circulation cells
are strong enough and face few obstacles either in the form of massive terrain features or high
pressure zones. The weaker Westerlies of the Ferrel cell, however, can be disrupted.
 The local passage of a cold front may change that in a matter of minutes, and frequently does. As
a result, at the surface, winds can vary abruptly in direction. But the winds above the surface, where
they are less disrupted by terrain, are essentially westerly. A low pressure zone at 60° latitude that
moves toward the equator, or a high pressure zone at 30° latitude that moves poleward, will
accelerate the Westerlies of the Ferrel cell. A strong high, moving polewards may bring westerly
winds for days.

The Ferrel system acts as a heat pump with a coefficient of performance of 12.1, consuming kinetic energy
from the Hadley and polar systems at an approximate rate of 275 terawatts

3. POLAR CELL
The polar cell is a simple system with strong convection drivers. Though cool and dry relative to equatorial
air, the air masses at the 60th parallel are still sufficiently warm and moist to undergo convection and drive
a thermal loop.

At the 60th parallel, the air rises to the tropopause (about 8 km at this latitude) and moves poleward. As it
does so, the upper-level air mass deviates toward the east. When the air reaches the polar areas, it has cooled
by radiation to space and is
considerably denser than the
underlying air. It descends, creating a
cold, dry high-pressure area. At the
polar surface level, the mass of air is
driven away from the pole toward the
60th parallel, replacing the air that rose
there, and the polar circulation cell is
complete. As the air at the surface

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moves toward the equator, it deviates westwards. Again, the deviations of the air masses are the result of
the Coriolis effect. The air flows at the surface are called the polar easterlies, flowing from northeast to
southwest near the north pole and from southeast to northwest near the south pole.

The outflow of air mass from the cell creates harmonic waves in the atmosphere known as Rossby waves.
These ultra-long waves determine the path of the polar jet stream, which travels within the transitional zone
between the tropopause and the Ferrel cell. By acting as a heat sink, the polar cell moves the abundant heat
from the equator toward the polar regions.

COMPARISON OF HADLEY CELL AND POLAR CELL

The Hadley cell and the polar cell are similar in that they are thermally direct; in other words, they exist as
a direct consequence of surface temperatures. Their thermal characteristics drive the weather in their
domain. The sheer volume of energy that the Hadley cell transports, and the depth of the heat sink contained
within the polar cell, ensures that transient weather phenomena not only have negligible effect on the
systems as a whole, but — except under unusual circumstances — they do not form. The endless chain of
passing highs and lows which is part of everyday life for mid-latitude dwellers, under the Ferrel cell at
latitudes between 30 and 60° latitude, is unknown above the 60th and below the 30th parallels. There are
some notable exceptions to this rule; over Europe, unstable weather extends to at least the 70th parallel
north.

PLANTERY WIND SYSTEM

Starting at the poles and moving toward the equator at 30° intervals of latitude are surface oscillations of
high (near 90°), low (near 60°), high (near 30°), and low (near 0°) pressure in each hemisphere. These
differences in pressure across space set up differences in atmospheric mass, because pressure is a function
of force (which is the product of mass and acceleration according to Newton’s second law). Because mass
is transferred from areas of higher concentration to areas of lower concentration, this general surface
pressure distribution sets up the planetary wind systems. Winds are simply the transfer of atmospheric mass
between an area of excess mass and an area containing less mass.

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SURFACE WIND SYSTEM

The pressure gradient force pushes air directly toward lower pressure areas—namely, toward 0° and 60°
latitude in each hemisphere, the equatorial and subpolar lows, respectively. Because of the rotation of the
planet, the Coriolis effect deflects these surface winds to the right in the northern hemisphere. This causes
air diverging from the northern hemisphere’s subtropical highs to flow clockwise (anticyclonically) as it
moves outward. Likewise, air diverging from the southern hemisphere’s subtropical highs flows
counterclockwise— also anticyclonically for that hemisphere, as it moves outward away from the high, as
the Coriolis effect deflects motion to the left in that hemisphere.

 Northeast Trade Winds

Surface winds moving

between 30°N and the
equator therefore take on
a motion that is from the
northeast. As we saw
elsewhere in the text,
winds are always named
for the direction from
which they blow. These
winds are, therefore,
appropriately called the
northeast trade winds (or
northeast trades). They
are termed “trade winds”
because they constituted
the primary sailing trade route between southern Europe and Spanish America across the North Atlantic
Ocean. The northeast trade winds steered Christopher Columbus from his point of departure in Spain toward
his unintended destinations in the Caribbean, Central America, and northern South America.

 Southeast Trade Winds

The southern hemisphere also has trade winds, but the leftward deflection of the Coriolis effect causes air
flowing out of the subtropical anticyclones to move counterclockwise and surface winds to move primarily
from the southeast between 30°S latitude and the equator. These are called the southeast trade winds (or

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southeast trades). It should be easy to remember that the northeast trades occur in the northern hemisphere,
whereas the southeast trade winds occur in the southern hemisphere.

 Intertropical Convergence Zone (ITCZ)

Because the northeast and southeast trade winds converge into the low-pressure equatorial low, the
equatorial low is sometimes known as the Intertropical Convergence Zone (ITCZ).

 Doldrums

A belt of relatively stagnant winds that form as air rises from the surface because of trade wind convergence
from both hemispheres. Sailing ships venturing into this area would often stagnate for long periods. Being
“stuck in the doldrums” achieved colloquial status, signifying a depression of some sort.

 Midlatitude Westerlies

On the poleward sides of the subtropical anticyclones, the surface pressure gradient force pushes air from
the high-pressure core toward the subpolar lows. This air is then deflected to the right (in the northern
hemisphere) or the left (in the southern hemisphere) on its trek to fill in the subpolar low. In this case,
though, the latitude is higher than in the case of the tropical trade winds, so the Coriolis deflection is
stronger. Recall that the magnitude of the Coriolis deflection is proportional to latitude. This strong
deflection causes the general circulation between 30°N and 60°N latitude to be approximately from west to
east near the surface. This surface wind belt is known as the midlatitude westerlies. The southern
hemisphere also has westerlies between 30°S and 60°S latitude. Even though the Coriolis deflection in that
hemisphere is from the opposite direction, the fact that the midlatitude zone is south of the subtropical
anticyclone rather than north of the high (as in the northern hemisphere) causes surface westerly winds to
exist in the southern hemisphere as well.

 Polar Easterlies

Air sinking to the surface and diverging equatorward at the polar highs also undergoes Coriolis deflection.
As the air travels from the region of the North Pole toward lower latitudes, it is deflected strongly (because
of the high latitude) to the right. This creates the surface wind belt known as the polar easterlies, as near-
surface prevailing air is generally from the east. Surface air moving from the region of the South Pole is
deflected to the left as it moves toward that hemisphere’s subpolar low. Coriolis deflection to the left also
creates polar easterlies near the surface for that hemisphere between 90° and 60°S latitude.

SURFACE WIND BELTS

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To summarize, moving from the region of the poles toward the equator, the following surface wind belts
occur:
4. Polar easterlies (90–60°N latitude)
5. Midlatitude westerlies (60–30°N)
6. Northeast trades (30°N–0°)
7. Southeast trades (0–30°S)
8. Midlatitude westerlies (30–60°S)
9. Polar easterlies (60–90°S)

UPPER LEVEL WINDS

Upper-level winds overlaying the surface wind patterns are also an important component of the general
circulation.

The upper-level pressure gradient force pushes air in the opposite direction from that at the surface in both
the Hadley cells and the polar cells. At the surface the pressure gradient force is directed from the
subtropical anticyclones to the equatorial low in the Hadley cells. But aloft, the upper-level pressure
gradient force pushes air from the equatorial region toward the poles, therefore moving air over the
subtropical anticyclones. Over the polar cell the upper-level pressure gradient force pushes the air from the
area over the subpolar lows to the area over the polar highs, a direction opposite to that at the surface. Of
course, in both the Hadley cells and the polar cells, the Coriolis effect causes a deflection of these winds

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generated by the pressure gradient force. The deflection is less in the Hadley cell than in the polar cell
because of the lower latitudes. The result is upper-level southwesterlies over the northern hemisphere
Hadley cell, northwesterlies over the southern hemisphere Hadley cell, and westerlies over the polar cells
in both hemispheres

These polar westerlies aloft advected the tephra from the Eyjafjallajökull volcanic eruptions in Iceland
eastward toward Europe in the spring of 2010, causing redirected air travel over northern Europe and the
North Atlantic. As air aloft in the Hadley cell continues to move poleward (the southwesterlies aloft in the
northern hemisphere and the northwesterlies aloft in the southern hemisphere), the Coriolis effect increases
in strength. The deflection to the right of the flow (or to the left of the flow in the southern hemisphere)
increases poleward, and flow becomes increasingly westerly near the poleward edge of the Hadley cell in
each hemisphere.

REFERNCES
 Climatology written by Robert and Anthony, Fourth Edition.
 Idealized General Circulation on a rotating planet. Retrieved from
https://oceanservice.noaa.gov/education/tutorial_currents/media/supp_cur04
b.html
 Revolution and Rotation of Earth. Retrieved from
https://sciencing.com/about-6737591-effect-revolution-rotation-climate-
weather.html
 Global Circulation Patterns. Retrieved from
https://www.metoffice.gov.uk/weather/learn-
about/weather/atmosphere/global-circulation-patterns
 Idealized General Circulation. Retrieved from http://pressbooks-
dev.oer.hawaii.edu/atmo/chapter/chapter-11-general-circulation/
 Atmospheric Circulation. Retrieved from
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Atmospheric_circulation
 Rotation of Earth. Retrieved from https://byjus.com/physics/rotation-and-
revolution/

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