Climate Change; & my latest Blog on the Effect of
"Coriolis".
The Earth is spinning about its
axis, so that in the Equatorial regions, the surface speed of the Earth is about
1,040 mph, and the speed of the Earth's rotation around the Sun is about 67,000
mph. These speeds together with a slight change of the Earth's centre of gravity
may cause the Earth to wobble a little, so that the direction of the Earth's
winds, including that of the Gulf Stream may have altered. One must remember
that the poles are shedding a mass of about 322 Gtons/year of land ice, and the
Arctic ice sheet sheds summer sea ice of an area of about the size of western
Australia. The explanation of rotational forces acting on the Earth's surface,
when its equator is spinning at 1,040 mph anti-clockwise; looking "down" from
north to south; can be explained by the Coriolis Effect. (See "Dynamics of
Mechanical Systems" by Carl T F Ross, Woodhead Publishers, Cambridge, UK, 1997).
In the case of Planet Earth, water flowing from the Arctic southwards; will
cause the water to have a westerly acceleration to the right, and in a clockwise
direction; and water flowing from the Antarctic northwards, will cause the water
to have a deflection to the left, and an acceleration in an anti-clockwise
direction. Thus, as the Polar summers are 6 months apart, the effects of this
will be virtually doubled. For example, during an Arctic summer, the water will
flow from north to south, at the north pole, so that the Coriolis effect will be
to cause a clockwise rotation about the north pole, looking from north to
south. At the same time, the water flowing from north to south in the
Antarctic, during the Arctic summer, will also cause a clockwise couple, looking
from north to south, at the south pole. Thus, according to the right hand screw
rule, these two couples are acting together in the same direction, and are will
not balance! This may play a part in our current unusually bad
weather.