Doesn't  the rotation of the earth on its axis contribute to winds?
351133
yes, of course the rotation of the Earth contributes to wind. The Earth is turning at about 25,000 mph. Air wants to stand still...obviously, air is moving to a high extent, or we would have 25,000 mph winds! But, friction, differences in topography (mountains, etc.) cause the air to move more slowly, so we have what is apparent wind. And, a bigger contributor is pressure difference in hot and cold air. The circulation of the Earth cause High pressure areas to spin in a clockwise motion in the northern Hemispher, and Low pressure areas to spin in a counter clockwise direction. When these two approach each other, pressure gradients cause air from the high to flow to the low creating winds...the stronger the differences in the low and high, the faster the wind to fill the low. Nature "abhors" a vacuum..and a low is a kind of vacuum. And yes, wind contributes greatly to tides. Wind pushes water in front of it, and when the pushed water comes ashore, the effects of wind are quite dramatic...such as a hurricane surge! Gravitational differences in the moon/Earth set up causes water to raise or lower, depending upon that cycle...a raise in water is a High Tide, and lowering is a Low Tide.  And that gravitational difference can be very dramatic....look at the tides along the Eastern seaboard. In some areas, the tidal differences are measured in a few feet, in others, the differences are as much as 20 feet! In some areas, there are NO tides.
595431
For the most part, yes. Low pressure systems in the Northern Hemisphere spin counterclockwise and Highs spin clockwise. The reverse is true in the Southern Hemisphere.
582141
The prevailing winds are formed due to circulations because of the rotating earth.  I assume this is a homework question you're trying to answer... and I have just a webpage (I think) will help you better than me trying to explain it as it uses graphics.  \nBetween 30-60 degrees North, we see the prevailing westerlies, or winds that generally come from a southwest direction.  Closer to the equator exists the trade winds which blow from the northeast.  And toward the poles are the polar easterlies which blow from the northeast.
58016
The thrust is irrelevant. This is a conservation of angular momentum problem so all you need is the momentum of the planes. When calculating the angular momentum of the earth, you need to multiply by a factor of 2/5 to make up for the fact that the earth is solid and not all of the mass is at the surface.\n\nyou can do the math yourself.
1168215
Neither, the axis it rotates on is a north-south axis. However, the earth is spinning west to east!\n\nPS I wish people wouldn't say it rotates left or right - its meaningless and incorrect. If you look at the Earth with the North Pole at the top it appears to rotate to the right, but if you look at the Earth with the South Pole at the top it appears to rotate to the left. Use east and west! It rotates to the east!
453275
Most of the atmosphere rotates with the earth, but yes, I'm sure inertial effects produce a tiny, tiny amount of friction.  More important are tidal effects of the moon's gravity, which are gradually slowing down the earth's rotation.  In a few billion years the difference in the length of the day will be noticeable.  And there's another kind of "air" resistance -- the solar wind, a continuous (but varying) stream of particles ejected by the sun.  These are mostly charged particles and are deflected by the earth's magnetic field toward the poles, where they produce the auroras (borealis and australis?), the northern and southern lights.
307489
It's because of something called the Coriolis effect, which is due to the earth's rotation. (First reference).  The basic idea is that, because the earth is rotating fastest at the equator, things moving north or south feel a slight deflection to the west or east.\n\nAir spirals into the center of a hurricane. So, imagine a lump of air that starts to the north of the hurricane's center. As that air moves south, it's going to enter areas where the earth is moving slightly faster. Since the earth spins toward the east, this lump of air will fall behind slightly, and, from our point of view, move towards the west.  A lump of air starting on the south of the hurricane, sees the reverse: it moves north, and is thus moving slightly faster to the east than the hurricane center. \n\nIn the southern hemisphere, this is reversed, and cyclones there spin clockwise.
1037132
Well, you need to take more than one law into account.  There's also the law of inertia; that an object in motion tends to stay in motion along a straight line unless another force acts on it.  In the earth's case, that other force is the sun's gravity.  As a result of the earth's own intrinsic motion and the sun's gravitational pull, the earth continues to orbit around the sun (though the sun is winning out, veeeerrrry slowly).  To disturb that equilibrium, you'd need a very large mass and/or a very high speed to overcome earth's inertia enough to knock it out of orbit.  While the impact of asteroids do have *some* effect, because asteroids come from every direction their cumulative effect evens out.  \n\nAn analogy would be walking outside on a windy day.  Normally, if there's no wind or an occasional breeze, it doesn't affect you much.  But if there's a strong wind coming from one direction then you get pushed by it, and a really strong gust can knock you over.
975112
If the Sun revolved around the Earth "like the bible says"... the laws of physics would not apply and wind would be the least of our worries... hence why the bible is wrong in most all respects and should not be used as a scientific basis for anything...\n\nWind is also not created by Earth's revolution around the Sun. Wind is the movement of air from high pressure areas to low pressure areas in the atmosphere. These low and high pressure fronts are created by Earth's rotation as well as a host of other factors that have to do with higher concentrations of plant and animal life that both absorb and give off elements of the atmosphere. The Sun heating the atmosphere also plays a critical role in the creation of these fronts.
1000247
In approximate terms, yes.  It's called cyclostrophic flow: the pressure gradient force provides the centripetal acceleration to maintain circular motion.  (pressure gradient force balancing centrifugal force)\n\nGive or take...\n\n*************\nSide note....\n*************\nThe coriolis effect certainly dictates the *direction* of circulation (clockwise in the southern hemisphere, counterclockwise in the northern hemisphere) thus the lack of tropical cyclone formation near the equator.\n\nHowever the apparent acceleration we attribute to the 'Coriolis Force' plays an insignificant role in determining the equilibrium trajectories of air parcels near a hurricane's core.  The distances involved are simply too small (10-100km) - the distance from the surface to the earth's axis changes very little on these scales in the tropics.
223771
This is not true, but widely circulated as fact.\n\nI quote verbatim from snopes:\n\n"Because  \n\n   the Earth is a globe spinning on an invisible axis, a point at its equator will make a circuit of 25,000 miles in the space of a day, but any point not on the equator will make a shorter round trip; the closer that point is to either of the poles, the shorter its trip will be. Put another way, a pencil     at the equator travels 1,030 miles an hour, whereas another at Sarasota, Florida, moves at 930 miles per hour, and one at the North pole doesn't move at all. \n\n This apparent difference in speed results in the Coriolis force, an effect that imparts a twist to largish events happening away from the equator. Best known is its effect on air masses: as they move away from the equator, their speed (which matches that of where they started from) appears to be faster than that of the surface over which they are traveling. This sets them turning in a clockwise twist in the northern hemisphere and a counterclockwise twist in the southern. (Before you complain we have that backwards, please click here.)  Likewise, a cannonball fired due north will veer a teeny bit to the east, and one fired to the south will deflect ever so slightly to the west, something a skilled gunner would make an adjustment for. \n\n The twisting effect of the Coriolis force is real and does influence certain large things like the movement of air masses, but the effect is so small that it plays no role in determining the direction in which water rotates as it exits from a draining sink or toilet. The Coriolis effect produces a measurable effect over huge distances and long periods of time, neither of which applies to your bathroom. Toilets and sinks drain in the directions they do because of the way water is directed into them or pulled from them. If water enters in a swirling motion (as it does when a toilet is flushed, for example), the water will exit in that same swirling pattern; as well, most basins have irregular surfaces and are not perfectly level, factors which influence the direction in which water spirals down their drains. The configuration of taps and drains is responsible for the direction of spin given to water draining from sinks and bathtubs to a degree that overwhelms the slight influence of the Coriolis force. \n\n The belief that the Coriolis force influences the direction in which water drains from plumbing fixtures is widespread and has been repeated as fact in a number of venues, including popular television shows (such as world traveler Michael Palin's Pole to Pole) and even in textbooks.  We can only speculate on why people are so enamored of this snippet of misinformation, guessing that it has something to do with the desire to find some of the mysteries of science in the realm of the everyday. "
32495
WIND \nAir that flows in relation to the earth's surface, generally horizontally. There are four areas of wind that are measured: direction, speed, character (gusts and squalls), and shifts. Surface winds are measured by wind vanes and anemometers, while upper level winds are detected through pilot balloons, rawin, or aircraft reports. \nWhoosh! You know that wind is moving air. But what causes the air to move? It’s the uneven heating of the earth’s atmosphere. \n\nAs the sun warms the earth’s surface, the atmosphere warms too. Some parts of the earth receive direct rays from the sun all year and are always warm. Other places receive indirect rays, so the climate is colder. Warm air, which weighs less than cool air, rises. Then cool air moves in and replaces the rising warm air. This movement of air is what makes the wind blow.
1063787
"Wind is the roughly horizontal movement of air (as opposed to an air current) caused by uneven heating of the Earth's surface. It occurs at all scales, from local breezes generated by heating of land surfaces and lasting tens of minutes to global winds resulting from solar heating of the Earth. The two major influences on the atmospheric circulation are the differential heating between the equator and the poles, and the rotation of the planet (Coriolis effect)."
1008362
A lot of wind current is caused by temperature differentials between two or more areas.  The earth's rotation is also responsible for currents and jet streams.  I had a porfessor tell me that the same wind that is blowing now is the same wind that has been blowing for 4 billion years.
65421
Wind is just moving air which id technically a mixture of particles and gaseous molecules. The earth's rotational spin and pressure systems causes movement. These mixture is microscopic yet you feel the effect of the movement as the friction caused when brushing on your body and hence wind. You cannot see wind with the naked eye but a lot of different particles are found within the atmospheric composition.
190298
There is the factor of where the wind originated from and the rotation of the earth.  Think about it, how fast is the north pole spinning (pretty slow, it takes 24 hrs for the earth to revolve)?  At the equator, the ground spins at a very high speed, being as the ground is further from the axis of rotation.  \n\nAs an example, a high-altitude air-mass originates from near the equator and travels away from the equator. The ground is spinning slower as you move away from the equator, but the air-mass does not lose a lot of the speed it had when it was at the equator.  Thus it will be moving relative to the ground it is now above. Since the earth rotates in the eastern direction, the wind will travel from east to west (relative to the ground it is now above).  \n\nIf the wind came from a location away from the equator and moved towards the equator, it is moving slowly relative to the equator so it will appear to be travelling slower than the rotation of the ground below it.  As a result, it would move from east to west relative to the ground.\n\nThis is how phenomenon like that jet-stream work.  This effect is called the coriolis (if I spelled it right) effect.
639560
The wind is just the observable and measurable manifestation of air molecules being drawn en masse from one place to another by a differential in atmospheric pressure between the two places.  What causes most of these pressure differentiations is (a) earth's rotation creating friction between the lower and upper components of the atmosphere, and (b) temperature gradients in the atmosphere and the oceans caused by the heating action of our star, the Sun.\n\nLet's go fly a kite!