Which Way the Winds Blow

The Earth's uneven heating is caused by the tilt of the Earth on it's axis, its path around the sun, and its shape. In one of our activities this was demonstrated. We took a flashlight and shined it down on a globe. You could see how the light only hit certain areas. I found this activity to be helpful to understanding this concept. Earths rotation creates wind. The coriolis effect causes the winds to go to the right in the northern hemisphere and to the left in the southern hemisphere. The winds circulate because warm air rises and travels up then cools and travels back to the equator. This process continues creating wind. Deserts are found at 30 degree latitudes because that's usually where the winds head back to the equator, so not much weather occurs there like rain, meaning there wont be much plant or animal life. There are many different types of wind. The doldrums are at the equator. The westerlies, also called the jet stream, go west to east between the 0 and 30 degree latitudes. The horse latitudes are the 60 degree latitudes.

Global warming could change wind patterns because the wind will travel farther and it wont cool and sink back to the equator. This could make the wind patterns go crazy.