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The westerlies can be particularly strong, especially in the southern hemisphere, where there is less land in the middle latitudes to cause the flow pattern to amplify, which slows the winds down. The strongest westerly winds in the middle latitudes are called the Roaring Forties , between 40 and 50 degrees south latitude, within the Southern ...
Trade winds originate more from the direction of the poles (northeast in the Northern Hemisphere, southeast in the Southern Hemisphere) during the cold season, and are stronger in the winter than the summer. [20] As an example, the windy season in the Guianas, which lie at low latitudes in South America, occurs between January and April. [21]
If the Earth were tidally locked to the Sun, solar heating would cause winds across the mid-latitudes to blow in a poleward direction, away from the subtropical ridge. . However, the Coriolis effect caused by the rotation of Earth tends to deflect poleward winds eastward from north (to the right) in the Northern Hemisphere and eastward from south (to the left) in the Southern Hemisph
On Uranus, northern hemisphere wind speeds reach as high as 240 meters per second (540 mph) near 50 degrees north latitude. [166] [167] [168] At the cloud tops of Neptune, prevailing winds range in speed from 400 meters per second (890 mph) along the equator to 250 meters per second (560 mph) at the poles. [169]
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.
These wind patterns result in a wind stress curl that drives Ekman pumping in the subtropics (resulting in downwelling) and Ekman suction in subpolar regions (resulting in upwelling). [3] Ekman pumping results in an increased sea surface height at the center of the gyre and anticyclonic geostrophic currents in subtropical gyres. [3]
The NEC is driven by the north-hemisphere easterly trade wind. In couple with NEC, there is another current called South Equatorial Current , generated by the easterly trade wind in the southern hemisphere. Despite the well-coupled name of the two equatorial currents, the distribution of the NEC and the SEC is not in symmetry at the equator ...
The ITCZ is visible as a band of clouds encircling Earth near the Equator. The Intertropical Convergence Zone (ITCZ / ɪ tʃ / ITCH, or ICZ), [1] known by sailors as the doldrums [2] or the calms because of its monotonous windless weather, is the area where the northeast and the southeast trade winds converge.