Into Thin Air The freezing, powerful winds that whip the top of Mt. Everest, the world's tallest mountain, are actually jet streams. Jet streams can be so cold, and so strong, that climbers cannot leave the shelter of their tents.
Pilots Go With the Flow Jet streams are so fast and powerful that airplanes have difficulty flying against them. Pilots either fly with the jet stream or above it; they do not attempt to fly against it. Carbon dioxide is also the byproduct of burning fossil fuels. Monsoon usually refers to the winds of the Indian Ocean and South Asia, which often bring heavy rains.
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Any interactives on this page can only be played while you are visiting our website. You cannot download interactives. Weather is the state of the atmosphere, including temperature, atmospheric pressure, wind, humidity, precipitation, and cloud cover. It differs from climate, which is all weather conditions for a particular location averaged over about 30 years.
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Environment As the EU targets emissions cuts, this country has a coal problem. Paid Content How Hong Kong protects its sea sanctuaries. History Magazine These 3,year-old giants watched over the cemeteries of Sardinia. The motion of the air is not directly north and south but is affected by the momentum the air has as it moves away from the equator. The reason has to do with momentum and how fast a location on or above the Earth moves relative to the Earth's axis.
Your speed relative to the Earth's axis depends on your location. In the graphic above right the person at the position on the equator arrives at the yellow line sooner than the other two.
Someone standing on a pole is not moving at all except that he or she would be slowly spinning. The speed of the rotation is great enough to cause you to weigh one pound less at the equator than you would at the north or south pole.
The momentum the air has as it travels around the earth is conserved, which means as the air that's over the equator starts moving toward one of the poles, it keeps its eastward motion constant. The Earth below the air, however, moves slower as that air travels toward the poles. The result is that the air moves faster and faster in an easterly direction relative to the Earth's surface below the farther it moves from the equator.
As the difference in temperature increases between the two locations the strength of the wind increases. The jet stream flows high overhead and causes changes in the wind and pressure at that level. This affects things nearer the surface, such as areas of high and low pressure, and therefore helps shape the weather we see.
This will slow things up, making areas of low pressure move less predictably. The jet stream can also change the strength of an area of low pressure. It acts a bit like a vacuum cleaner, sucking air out of the top and causing it to become more intense, lowering the pressure system.
The lower the pressure within a system, generally the stronger the wind, and more stormy the result. On the other hand, a slower, more buckled jet stream can cause areas of higher pressure to take charge, which typically brings less stormy weather, light winds and dry skies.
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