Which One Is Correct?

[John Hudson]

Whenever I have read explanations on what gives the polar jet its easterly component, I have seen two different ideas presented. Meteorology Today claims it is the coonservation of angular momentum at work, still others say it is the Coriolis Force.

Can anyone help me clear this up?

Thanks in advance!

John

 

[Jason Boggs]

I believe it's the Coriolis force. Jeff Snyder, where are you!?!

 

[rdale]

http://www.theweatherprediction.com/habyhints/27/

Same difference. Technically the Coriolis "force" isn't doing anything, it's a result of the angular momentum conservation.

 

[John Hudson]

http://www.theweatherprediction.com/habyhints/27/

Same difference. Technically the Coriolis "force" isn't doing anything, it's a result of the angular momentum conservation.

Thanks very much; I believed this was the right version of events. They should really call it the Coriolis effect instead of force, as it is not really a force at all, just apparent motion.

John

 

[Andrew Ryan]

Thanks very much; I believed this was the right version of events. They should really call it the Coriolis effect instead of force, as it is not really a force at all, just apparent motion.

John

haha. I just had a similar question in my Atmospheric dynamics class. But anywho, yep it's because of the conservation of angular momentum.

Even though the Coriolis force a fictitious force, it's still a force. The reason is that it breaks Newton's third law. There's no force in the opposite direction.

 

[Jeff Duda]

Even though the Coriolis force a fictitious force, it's still a force. The reason is that it breaks Newton's third law. There's no force in the opposite direction.

The Coriolis "force" is indeed not a force, but the way I think of it is that it is not a force because it has no source or sink (i.e., the "force" is not coming from anywhere nor going towards anything...the very nature of what we call a force). Thus it is an "apparent" force.