global wind patterns

The Earth is unevenly heated because it spins on an axis, it rotates in an elliptical pattern around the sun, and it is a sphere. This means that when the sun's light hits the earth, more direct light is concentrated  toward the equator and less concentrated at the poles. Also, since  the earth is spinning, it generates wind movement and this movement draws cold air from the north and warm air from the equator which create cold and warm fronts that contribute to the uneven  heating of the earth. Finally the elliptical movement of the earth around the sun creates seasons which  tend to drastically change weather patterns and result in uneven heating around the Earth. I learned some if this information by doing a global wind pattern activity, this activity accurately shows that because of the Earth's rotation the winds move in a spherical pattern.

The Earths rotation affect the movement of air and water masses. Since the Earth moves from west to east, this in fact makes the wind and ocean currents do the same. In class we did an activity that describes this example well. We took a ball and spun it in the same direction as the earth, then we lightly used a dry erase marker to draw a straight line from the top to the bottom. When the ball stopped spinning we took not of the pattern. In class we also learned of the Coriolis effect, which is a natural phenomenon in which it deflects the wind movements. We also learned of Hadley cells which were defined to us as tropic atmospheric circulations. The final thing we learned that day was that most deserts are found 30 degrees north or south of the equator because this is where the doldrums are. 

Prevailing global wind patterns are global winds that blow in a particular direction on the earths surface that cause weather patterns. In the past these winds have been used for trading along with doldrums, the horse latitudes, and the westerlies. In our class we studied this topic and learned about how these wind patterns and their direction help planes fly faster to different locations and save more fuel. 

http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/9/9c/Earth_Global_Circulation_-_en.svg

Global warming might change wind/weather patterns because because of the rising temperature storms of all kinds might become more intense with stronger forces. The National Wildlife Federation has an article that explains this idea further providing more details.

 http://www.nwf.org/Wildlife/Threats-to-Wildlife/Global-Warming/Global-Warming-is-Causing-Extreme-Weather.aspx