English

Earth's Rotation Causes Global Atmospheric Circulation

Atmospheric and Oceanic Physics 2023-06-22 v3 Fluid Dynamics Geophysics

Abstract

Understanding processes that determine the global circulation of the atmosphere is necessary for long-term weather forecasting and climate studies which are critical for ensuring energy security. Processes in the atmosphere depend on many factors including the rotation of the Earth. The vertical component of the emerging centripetal acceleration is taken into account by introducing a geopotential height, and the influence of the horizontal component is usually not taken into account, although these components are close in magnitude. Here, I describe a mechanism of circulation formation due to a non-hydrostatic pressure gradient resulting from centripetal acceleration, which is created by the rotation of the Earth. The effect is similar to the curvature of a water surface in a rotating vessel. This causes the unevenly heated air to move in a meridional direction. The circulation consists of three oppositely directed flows separated vertically by the polar and tropical tropopause.

Keywords

Cite

@article{arxiv.2206.14887,
  title  = {Earth's Rotation Causes Global Atmospheric Circulation},
  author = {Alexander V. Kochin},
  journal= {arXiv preprint arXiv:2206.14887},
  year   = {2023}
}

Comments

The curvature of the Earth's surface was not taken into account. The curvature of the surface is taken into account and published in the new edition of the article. Earth's Rotation forms the general circulation of the atmosphere. arXiv:2306.11057

R2 v1 2026-06-24T12:08:52.818Z