wind images

wind

Global wind patterns are determined by differences in atmospheric pressure resulting from the uneven heating of the Earth's surface by the Sun. As air is heated along the equator it rises, creating a zone of low pressure that draws air toward it throughout the tropics and produces the surface flow known as the trade winds. After it rises, the warm equatorial air flows north and south, cooling in the upper atmosphere until it is dense enough to descend near the Tropics of Cancer and Capricorn. Part of this cooler air flows at surface level toward the poles, where it meets the colder, drier air flowing away from the poles. The Coriolis effect deflects these broad surface flows, turning winds that blow toward the equator into easterlies and those that blow toward the poles into westerlies.

A road winds through the hills.