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1. Why don't hurricanes form in the north
Atlantic? 2. In the northern hemisphere, do
hurricanes move clockwise or counter clockwise?
3. What two celestial object cause the tides on
the moon?
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Question Date: 2007-05-23 | | Answer 1:
Hurricanes are known to form in warmer climes
simply due to the higher evaporation rates of the
water which are the initial source of a
hurricane's power. Its basically a large heat
engine (similar to the one in your car, but with
different fuel) driven by temperature/pressure
gradients (differences in temperature/pressure
between different places), condensation, and
evaporation. If you remove or decrease one of
those processes, then the hurricane loses power.
In the northern Atlantic, the rates of evaporation
generally aren't high enough to get such a storm
started. Hurricanes only exist in the
northern hemisphere since by definition they
rotate counterclockwise. In the southern
hemisphere, they are called typhoons only because
they rotate clockwise. Its a silly distinction.
They both fall under the category of tropical
cyclone, which is probably the more technical
term. The reason for this difference is due to an
effect called the Coriolis force. it's due to the
earth's rotation, and you can observe this effect
for yourself if you stand on a fast-spinning
merry-go-round in the center and try to walk
outwards (these tropical cyclones would
equivalently start from the outside and move in,
due to the fact that they move towards our north
and south poles, but the effect is the same).
Youll feel a "force" tugging on you along or
opposite to the direction of rotation. Thats the
Coriolis force. I think you're confused
about your question here... there are no tides on
the moon since there's no water. Tides are (as
far as I know) ubiquitously used to describe
motions of water due to gravitational bodies. The
primary source of our tides on earth is due to the
moon. Theres also a weaker effect due to the sun,
but it's not nearly as prominent. When you study
gravity it will become easier to explain, but
basically tides are due to the difference in the
force of gravity between two points, not the
actual strength of gravity. For instance the sun
acts with much more gravity on us than the moon
does, but the moon gives us stronger tides than
the sun. You can think of it this way: imagine a
person pulling in two directions on an object. No
matter how strong he is, if his arms are the same
strength then the object doesn't move. But if one
arm is much stronger than the other, then the
object gets pulled in some direction. In that
sense, the tides are due to differences in gravity
on opposite sides of the earth. The sun's gravity
is not too different from one end of the earth to
another (even if it's very strong) while the
moon's difference is much greater (even if the
overall gravity is much weaker). | | Answer 2:
Earth and the Sun are large enough and close
enough to cause measurable tides on the moon.The
Sun is very far away, but it's also very, very
large. Hope this helps! Best wishes... | | Answer 3:
1. Hurricanes, indeed all storms, require heat
to form. If the water isn't warm enough, they just
won't happen. The North Atlantic is quite
cold. 2. Air spins counterclockwise around
low-pressure regions in the Northern
Hemisphere. 3. Everything in the universe
induces tides on a given object at some level. On
the moon, the two most important tide-influencing
objects are (most important) the Earth and
(secondarily) the Sun. Of course, there aren't any
oceans on the moon to respond to those tides... | | Answer 4:
1. Why don't hurricanes form in the north
Atlantic? Hurricanes don't form in the North
Atlantic because they require warm sea surface
temperatures. 2. In the northern
hemisphere, do hurricanes move clockwise or
counter clockwise? Hurricanes spin clockwise in
the northern hemisphere and counter-clockwise in
the southern hemisphere because of the Coriolis
force acting on the rotation of the planet. See
this link for an explanation of Coriolis forces
(there is an animation that is very helpful): click
here The animation, as it is shown,
would represent the northern hemisphere; you can
see the black object spinning clockwise. Imagine
turning the animation upside-down; the black
object would spin counter-clockwise. A similar
effect happens to air particles within hurricanes
in the Earth's atmosphere, leading to the spin
orientation for the hurricane. 3. What two
celestial object cause the tides on the
moon? Tides, as typically referred to, are a
property of the Earth's oceans. They are a cycle
of changes in sea level. Gravitational forces from
the sun and the moon affect the ocean tidal cycles
on the Earth. Since there is no water on the moon,
the moon does not have these sorts of tides. A
tide, in a more strict sense, is a periodic
gravitational force on a body; these forces can
distort the shape of the body (such as the Earth
or moon) very slightly. It is actually this type
of distortion that leads to the Earth's ocean
tides. The two celestial bodies that exert the
strongest tidal forces on the moon are the sun and
the Earth. Click Here to return to the search form.
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