Speaker 1: Welcome to Stuff you should know, a production of I
Speaker 1: Heart Radio. Hey, I'm welcome to the podcast. I'm Josh,
Speaker 1: and there's Chuck and Jerry's here too, and this is
Speaker 1: stuff you should know. Get another edition of our never
Speaker 1: ending Please don't ever let it in um Earth Science Week.
Speaker 1: That's right? Uh? Can I tell you a quick story?
Speaker 1: Have added you edged? I know, actually considered what I
Speaker 1: should say. The astute listener with it heard you go
Speaker 1: before he said yes, hopefully Jerry can edit them. Uh. So,
Speaker 1: I think I may have talked about this before, but
Speaker 1: I had aims at one point, and not like the
Speaker 1: most passionate aims. But I thought about being a meteorologist
Speaker 1: for a little while in college because I was headed
Speaker 1: toward a journalism may juror. And I think I mentioned
Speaker 1: before my best friend from high school, the the map
Speaker 1: illustrator today Ra. We we sit around and watch the
Speaker 1: Weather Channel, largely due to Rad's influence, and I just
Speaker 1: always thought it was cool. I took a meteorology class
Speaker 1: in college and it kicked the poopoo out of my body. Yeah.
Speaker 1: I had a similar experience with astronomy. Yeah, so I
Speaker 1: knew what, like you wanted to be an astronomer and
Speaker 1: then you're like, this is too hard. I thought it
Speaker 1: was gonna be like, look at this star, this is
Speaker 1: pretty awesome. And then like the first day, like the
Speaker 1: sigma like signs shows up, I'm like, I don't know
Speaker 1: what to do with this. So I think, I think
Speaker 1: I get where you're coming from. Yeah, so that kind
Speaker 1: of dashed my dreams of being a meteorologist, because you know,
Speaker 1: I mean we I think people can teach themselves things,
Speaker 1: and like, part of the hard part of our job
Speaker 1: is to teach ourselves something really like that. People go
Speaker 1: to school for four years to study, and I think
Speaker 1: you can sort of teach yourself stuff. But unless there's
Speaker 1: a you have just a fundamental, weird innate understanding of
Speaker 1: that stuff, it's just really challenging. Like if you're not
Speaker 1: a math person, you can learn math, but not like
Speaker 1: someone who just really gets numbers. Sure, Yeah, definitely makes
Speaker 1: sense totally. And I'm not sure we've ever really by we,
Speaker 1: I mean humanity, have put our finger on what that
Speaker 1: distinction is that it'd be interesting to know what some
Speaker 1: of the hypotheses are. Maybe we should do a podcast
Speaker 1: on it. Yeah, that'd be good. So anyway, that's a
Speaker 1: long winded way, long winded way of sort of saying,
Speaker 1: you know, I did this over and over and studied
Speaker 1: wind of the past couple of days, and I I
Speaker 1: kind of get it enough for this show. But but
Speaker 1: I'm not going to be a meteorologist for a very
Speaker 1: good reason. Yeah, I'm with you. Um, I've got it
Speaker 1: just enough. That feels like there's a massive opening on
Speaker 1: the side of my head and everything I know about
Speaker 1: when could just fall right out at any moment. But
Speaker 1: it's in there for now, keep it shut for the
Speaker 1: next forty But I'm trying. I've got my hand cover.
Speaker 1: It's really gooey in there. It's more complex than you
Speaker 1: would think, but some parts are easier as well. Yeah,
Speaker 1: And I mean, like, even if you're talking about wind, um,
Speaker 1: you can kind of break down what what wind is
Speaker 1: and what causes wind and what creates wind um into
Speaker 1: basically three different things. The first one is heat, which
Speaker 1: we'll get into. Another one is pressure differences we'll get
Speaker 1: into that as well, and then the rotation of the planet,
Speaker 1: which we will get into in this episode. But yeah,
Speaker 1: that's it gets a little tricky. Yes, agreed, Totally agreed, Um,
Speaker 1: And I say, we just dive in and we start
Speaker 1: with pressure differences creating wind, because I think it's the
Speaker 1: simplest thing to understand, and I think once you have
Speaker 1: pressure differences down, you can move on to the heat part. Yeah.
Speaker 1: I mean this was this the grab stir Did he
Speaker 1: help us with this one? Yes? And I have to
Speaker 1: say the grab shirt did an amazing job angling this info. Yeah. No,
Speaker 1: hats off to him. Is you know ed out? I
Speaker 1: think ed always has a knack of uh delivering a
Speaker 1: metaphorical type example that really hits home. And with pressure
Speaker 1: he uses just a balloon filled with air where you
Speaker 1: have high pressure and low pressure, and when you take
Speaker 1: your fingers off the tip of that balloon, all that changes.
Speaker 1: Because what wind is really always trying to do on
Speaker 1: planet Earth is equalize and reach some sort of equilibrium.
Speaker 1: And that's basically what's happening with wind. As you have
Speaker 1: high pressure, which is you know, technically more air, and
Speaker 1: that's gonna go flow away from itself because it wants
Speaker 1: to equalize, and then it's gonna where there's less air,
Speaker 1: the surrounding area is gonna flow towards the lower area.
Speaker 1: So as it relates to wind, there's basically more wind
Speaker 1: and the winds are faster when those two disparities are
Speaker 1: the greatest. Yeah, if you get a parcel of air um,
Speaker 1: which is just a kind of a stable mass of
Speaker 1: air as far as meteorologist at concerned, that's really high pressure,
Speaker 1: and you get on this really low pressure that along
Speaker 1: the edges of those two places, there's gonna be much
Speaker 1: higher wind than if they're a lot closer between high
Speaker 1: and low. If they're closer to the same And so
Speaker 1: that's I mean, that's wind right there. Um, it just
Speaker 1: changes in differences in pressure. Different parcels of air coming
Speaker 1: up against one another and saying I'm gonna fill you up,
Speaker 1: and then the other one says, fill me up. And
Speaker 1: that's the filling up. Is the wind the movement of
Speaker 1: the air. Yeah, so pretty easy, I think. So Yeah,
Speaker 1: it's just where does those where do those um differences
Speaker 1: of pressure come from? Are you? Are you asking me? Yeah, Well,
Speaker 1: they come from the well, the heat is a big
Speaker 1: source where all this comes from. Which and you kind
Speaker 1: of well, I thought you hinted, but then we did
Speaker 1: a different take and you've rescinded that hint. But the
Speaker 1: sun when it heats the earth it heats the surfaces
Speaker 1: of the Earth. It doesn't really heat the air so
Speaker 1: much as it heats the surfaces whether it's water or
Speaker 1: land or like asphalt or sand or green grass, and
Speaker 1: they all have different temperatures, and that disparity is kind
Speaker 1: of the key to it all because that's going to
Speaker 1: reflect back up and that's kind of what heats the air,
Speaker 1: is the reflection of that sun onto these various temperatured
Speaker 1: surfaces or not temperature, but I guess ability to soak
Speaker 1: up that sun maybe, right, yeah, because it's not it's
Speaker 1: not at all uniform. Like you said, all these different
Speaker 1: kinds of materials found on the surface of Earth, like
Speaker 1: absorbed heat differently and radiate heat differently. So that means
Speaker 1: that the air above it that's getting heated by that
Speaker 1: land is going to be different than a different parcel
Speaker 1: of air like over water, right yeah. And so because
Speaker 1: um heat has to do with pressure and typically is
Speaker 1: associated with low pressure, UM heat warms air, makes it expand,
Speaker 1: which makes it less dense, which means it starts to
Speaker 1: float up away from the Earth's surface. And as it's
Speaker 1: floating up away from the Earth's surface, because of that
Speaker 1: um that equilibrium that air seeks areas of higher pressure
Speaker 1: like move in to fill that vacuum that space that's
Speaker 1: being left by that lower pressure parcel of air that's
Speaker 1: floating up into space because it's warm, right, And this
Speaker 1: is that circular it's called convection. Like you've ever bought
Speaker 1: a or seen a bad infographic on a convection of
Speaker 1: and it's it's bound to have like red pulsating circular
Speaker 1: arrows right, kind of going up and then back down
Speaker 1: again in a circle. And that's what it is. That's
Speaker 1: all it is, is convection. It's the same thing remember
Speaker 1: that visions cookware in the eighties that you could see through.
Speaker 1: So if you ever watched a pot of water boil
Speaker 1: in one of those things, that's convection as well. Like
Speaker 1: those bubbles going up, the hottest ones start to float
Speaker 1: and they're replaced by cooler stuff that in in its
Speaker 1: place starts to get heated up and starts to float.
Speaker 1: And so what you've got is basically like a circular
Speaker 1: conveyor belt like a ferris wheel almost where the air
Speaker 1: that's heated at the I think so too, especially if
Speaker 1: we're talking about one of those ferrist wheels. Where the
Speaker 1: little cabins spin all the way around on their own axis. Terrifying. Yeah,
Speaker 1: so you've got a ferris wheel, and as the ferris
Speaker 1: wheel goes up the warm air that becomes less dense,
Speaker 1: and it rides to the top, and when it hits
Speaker 1: the top, it's colder up there than it is at
Speaker 1: the surface, so it starts to cool down. So it
Speaker 1: comes back down the other side. And as it's coming
Speaker 1: down because it's cooler, other air that replaced it before
Speaker 1: is going up because it's gotten warmer in its place,
Speaker 1: and it's just this constant moving ferris wheel. Like you said, convection,
Speaker 1: that's convection rising and falling parcels of air in this case,
Speaker 1: but it can also be you know, bubbles of air
Speaker 1: and water for boiling, or pockets of air in your
Speaker 1: convection of it or something. Right, So, now, everybody, we
Speaker 1: talked a little bit about the Coriolis force or the
Speaker 1: Coriolis effect before. I don't remember what it was in
Speaker 1: I don't remember either, because we we definitely have talked
Speaker 1: about multiple times about your sink or toilet drain. Right,
Speaker 1: So here's what I understand. The part where I get
Speaker 1: a little fuzzy is how as it relates to wind,
Speaker 1: And I know that you've got that down, So I
Speaker 1: think we should make a pretty good dance partners here
Speaker 1: and two. But I do understand, like the Coriolis force
Speaker 1: only affects objects that are moving around something that's rotating,
Speaker 1: and in this case we're talking about the Earth. But
Speaker 1: like it's it's very easy for me to understand that
Speaker 1: if a plane takes off in Miami and tries to
Speaker 1: fly to Seattle, it's not like by the time it
Speaker 1: gets to Seattle, the Earth is going to be in
Speaker 1: a different position. So Seattle is because it rotates, So
Speaker 1: Seattle is going to be in a different place. So
Speaker 1: when you look at the little map, it's not going
Speaker 1: you can't fly in a straight line from Miami to Seattle.
Speaker 1: You have to fly in a curve to meet up
Speaker 1: with where Seattle is eventually going to be. Yeah, So
Speaker 1: that all makes sense to me as it relates to wind.
Speaker 1: It kind of even after reading this like eight times,
Speaker 1: got a little still a little hazy. So the way
Speaker 1: that I saw it described that makes the most sense
Speaker 1: to me is that, um, the Earth being like a
Speaker 1: sphere or kind of like a sphere, of shape. Um,
Speaker 1: But every part of the planet rotating, making making a
Speaker 1: full rotation in twenty four hours means that some parts
Speaker 1: of the planet have a lot further distance to travel
Speaker 1: than other parts of the planet. So the equator, equator, yeah,
Speaker 1: the equator has to travel about forty kilometers in twenty
Speaker 1: four hours, but as you go closer to the polls,
Speaker 1: there's a lot further distance. I think it like, um,
Speaker 1: like eighty nine degrees north latitude, right right below the
Speaker 1: North Pole, it has to travel sixty nine miles in
Speaker 1: twenty four hours. So no part of the Earth can
Speaker 1: arrive before another part of the Earth within twenty four hours.
Speaker 1: It just doesn't work like that. So some parts of
Speaker 1: the Earth travel more slowly than others. Still, you you
Speaker 1: got it so far, Okay. Now what I saw is
Speaker 1: that if you fire, say like a cannon from the
Speaker 1: equator towards the North Pole. When you're firing, I just
Speaker 1: it's like one of those cannons that the cannonball is
Speaker 1: filled with candy, so you're not it's not hostile at all.
Speaker 1: It's a very fun cannon exactly. I think we just
Speaker 1: invented a new great thing. Um. So when you shoot
Speaker 1: that cannonball north towards the North Pole. You're shooting it
Speaker 1: at the speeds that the cannon was already traveling, which
Speaker 1: is something like a thousand miles an hour on the equator,
Speaker 1: and as it gets further and further north, it's reaching
Speaker 1: a part of the Earth that isn't moving as fast
Speaker 1: as the equator. So that means that the cannonball actually
Speaker 1: appears to curve to the right because it gets ahead
Speaker 1: of the Earth as it's traveling. So that cannonball is
Speaker 1: gonna land um east of your target of the North Pole.
Speaker 1: Got it? Yeah, But see what's confusing me now is
Speaker 1: the thing that you set me that said to explain
Speaker 1: it best was from a surfing website and it had
Speaker 1: to do with Spanish roundabouts. Okay, that's another way to
Speaker 1: put it to you. So we have well, we haven't
Speaker 1: quite reached that. We haven't quite reached that. I have
Speaker 1: one more part of the cannonball to say. If you're
Speaker 1: at the polls and you're you shoot a cannon toward
Speaker 1: um the equator, you're shooting it from a slower place
Speaker 1: to a faster place, so the cannon is going to
Speaker 1: curve behind your target to the west. Of the target,
Speaker 1: But to you, the person firing the cannon, it's still
Speaker 1: curved to the right. So no matter where you're firing
Speaker 1: a cannon from, whether the equator or the poles, it's
Speaker 1: going to curve the same way in the northern or
Speaker 1: the southern hemisphere, to the right in the north, to
Speaker 1: the left in the southern hemisphere. Now out we we
Speaker 1: hit the roundabout part. Okay, are you do you want
Speaker 1: to take that one? Well, I mean sure, it's it's
Speaker 1: sort of common sense. If you drive on the right
Speaker 1: hand side of the road and you enter a round about,
Speaker 1: you're gonna be going counterclockwise around it, and if you
Speaker 1: drive on the left hand side of the road, it
Speaker 1: will be the opposite. Is it. Is it really that simple? Yes?
Speaker 1: It depends on which way the air is moving. So
Speaker 1: if you're talking about around about do you remember our
Speaker 1: episode we just did the short stuff on the direction
Speaker 1: humans tend to travel. Yeah, yeah, right, if you're certain countries,
Speaker 1: and we talked about how if you're entering a circle
Speaker 1: and you go to the right, you you end up
Speaker 1: going counter clockwise. But if you're in the circle and
Speaker 1: you go to the right, you end up going clockwise. Oh, yeah, yeah, okay,
Speaker 1: the same thing happens. So if you have a high
Speaker 1: pressure system, air is flowing away from it, so that
Speaker 1: air is coming out of the circle. But any direction
Speaker 1: that that air is going, say in the northern hemisphere,
Speaker 1: it's going to veer to the right. But since it's
Speaker 1: coming outside of the circle, that means that all of
Speaker 1: that air eventually is getting spun into a clockwise direction. Yeah.
Speaker 1: If it's going into that parcel of air, that circle
Speaker 1: of air, because it's low pressure, everything's coming into it
Speaker 1: at a right hand angle, which means that the spin
Speaker 1: of the air is counter clockwise. I love it. I
Speaker 1: think it's really interesting. I was watching, as always, a
Speaker 1: lot of kids science videos to learn this stuff, and
Speaker 1: one of them had a sort of a map of
Speaker 1: the hurricanes of the world and as far as like
Speaker 1: the directionality, using just little lines and arrows, and it's
Speaker 1: just fascinating to look at the band of the equator.
Speaker 1: I don't know how wide of an area that is
Speaker 1: that deflects it, but there are no hurricanes at the
Speaker 1: equator or within that certain band of width around the equator,
Speaker 1: and it's it's just cool to look at, you know,
Speaker 1: above and below the equator. How these hurricanes approach it
Speaker 1: and then almost are like no, no, no, no, thank
Speaker 1: you and go and just take a turn. Yeah, they
Speaker 1: get deflected by the air, the convection currents. They're right. Yeah,
Speaker 1: it's really fascinating. I think it's fascinating too, And I
Speaker 1: say we take a break and come back and talk
Speaker 1: more about wind of all things. Let's do it all, right, Chuck.
Speaker 1: So you're talking about how that that um, the movement,
Speaker 1: that convection of air combined with the Coriolis effect creates
Speaker 1: cyclones and hurricanes, depending on what hemisphere you're in in
Speaker 1: the world, right, m hm um. It also like that
Speaker 1: a cyclone or hurricane is a really tight weather system.
Speaker 1: They're rarely that tight. They're usually much more spread out
Speaker 1: and much looser, but generally the same thing. And because
Speaker 1: of those two things, the convection currents and the Coriolis effect,
Speaker 1: that means that air spreads around the world. It travels
Speaker 1: around the world. If we didn't have a rotating planet,
Speaker 1: we would just have a convection current that went from
Speaker 1: the equator to the pulse, the equator to the pulse,
Speaker 1: and that's it. But because of that Coreolis effect, it
Speaker 1: spreads around the world, right, and in as it kind
Speaker 1: of spreads around the world, it's also kind of staying
Speaker 1: within a certain number of latitude and forms these large
Speaker 1: giant cells, so that each band of latitude around the
Speaker 1: world generally has its own weather. Yeah. I mean this
Speaker 1: part is really cool and it it makes perfect sense.
Speaker 1: You know, the equator is where it's going to to
Speaker 1: be warmest on planet Earth, and as the air is
Speaker 1: you know, reflected back up with the Coriolis effect and
Speaker 1: it goes further north, it's going to start cooling down.
Speaker 1: And they've basically figured out at about thirty degrees latitude
Speaker 1: it will have cooled down enough at that point to
Speaker 1: finally descend again. But when it's descending again, it's always
Speaker 1: seeking that equal equilibrium. So it's gonna be pulled back
Speaker 1: towards the equator again by the low pressure caused by
Speaker 1: heating and rising to begin with. So again it's that
Speaker 1: convection cycle. But they figured out that it's about thirty
Speaker 1: degrees where that temperature change finally is enough for that
Speaker 1: to happen again. Yeah, And so because of the Coriolis effect,
Speaker 1: you have high atmosphere winds traveling from west to east
Speaker 1: and then when they descend, they come back down from
Speaker 1: uh east to west. In those form the trade winds.
Speaker 1: In this giant cell that's called a Hadley cell, which
Speaker 1: is between the equator and like you said, about thirty
Speaker 1: degrees north latitude. That's one or two of those. Yes,
Speaker 1: there's one in the north and there's one in the south.
Speaker 1: And then around around the poles there are two other cells,
Speaker 1: appropriately called polar cells. And because it's so cold, the
Speaker 1: equator has its cells because it's so hot. The poles
Speaker 1: have their cells because they're so cold that any difference
Speaker 1: in temperature is like a radical difference in temperature. So
Speaker 1: they have their own convection currents that operate at the
Speaker 1: poles as well. That's right, Uh. And like you said,
Speaker 1: that's the polar cell that hits it about sixty degrees
Speaker 1: and it's just too too basically uh, temperatures of convection
Speaker 1: happening on both sides of the Earth. And then in
Speaker 1: between you've got what's called the feral cell and the
Speaker 1: R R E L And this is between thirty and
Speaker 1: sixty degrees obviously roughly, and right here, you know, the
Speaker 1: heat differential isn't that much. It's not the you know,
Speaker 1: super super cold or super super hot, so you're not
Speaker 1: going to get as much like radical convection going on.
Speaker 1: And most of the movement there is caused by the
Speaker 1: Hadley cell below it and the polar cell above it,
Speaker 1: sort of knocking it about in between. Yeah, which is
Speaker 1: really cool because that means that the friction from the
Speaker 1: Hadley cell below and the polar cell above it are
Speaker 1: actually spinning the air in the Ferreal cell. And because
Speaker 1: the polar cell and the and yeah, and the Hadley
Speaker 1: cell are both spinning counter clockwise, they're like gears turning
Speaker 1: a cog, and that cog is the Ferrell cell. And
Speaker 1: because they're both spin encounter clockwise, they spin the Ferreal
Speaker 1: cell clockwise. That's right. That's just so not so amazing
Speaker 1: to me that this is happening at all times on
Speaker 1: planet Earth. Yes, And because of the tilt of the
Speaker 1: Earth on its axis as it rotates, which gives us
Speaker 1: the seasons, the different different strengths and um amounts of
Speaker 1: this kind of movement of air, and where they are
Speaker 1: within that band of latitude that they exist in changes
Speaker 1: over the course of a year, which gives us different
Speaker 1: kinds of weather on different parts of the Earth over
Speaker 1: different times of the year, that's right, and all of
Speaker 1: this stuff going on, all of these the Haley cells,
Speaker 1: the polar cells, and the feral cells all interacting with
Speaker 1: the Coriolis force that we talked about and that you
Speaker 1: wonderfully explained with candy cannons and all these different pressure
Speaker 1: gradients that we explained at the beginning. All of this
Speaker 1: stuff together causes the jet streams. Uh, if you've ever
Speaker 1: flown there's an airplane, you know, and they say we
Speaker 1: can we can make up some time if we fly
Speaker 1: a little higher, or you know, if we're going you know,
Speaker 1: east to west or west to east, things are gonna
Speaker 1: like your speed is going to be different because of
Speaker 1: these jet streams. They're super powerful and very focused in
Speaker 1: bands a few hundred miles wide that just wrap around
Speaker 1: the planet. And the polar jet stream that's that's the money.
Speaker 1: When that's where you're really going to be able to
Speaker 1: like utilize an airplane's efficiency at its maximum. The subtropical
Speaker 1: jet stream isn't as powerful, so it doesn't get as
Speaker 1: much pressed, but the polar jet stream can go like
Speaker 1: two miles an hour, and that's when you know, when
Speaker 1: you fly up in that thing. That's when you're it's
Speaker 1: like walking on a moving sidewalk in an airport, Yeah,
Speaker 1: but one that goes two hundred miles an hour. So
Speaker 1: hang onto your hats, right, So you're still walking, but
Speaker 1: you're getting that extra boost exactly. Um. And the reason
Speaker 1: the jet stream is so powerful up north, the polar
Speaker 1: jet stream is because the difference in temperature between the
Speaker 1: Polar cell and the Ferrel cell is much different. It's
Speaker 1: much greater than the difference in temperature between the Hadley
Speaker 1: cell just above the equator and the Ferrell cell. Between
Speaker 1: the Polar and the Hadley cells right right, And because
Speaker 1: of that temperature gradient, there's density differences. So air moves
Speaker 1: really really fast, and it wants to go from the north,
Speaker 1: from the poles toward the Ferreal cell into the mid latitudes,
Speaker 1: but it can't. It can't go all the way down
Speaker 1: because the pull of the Coriolis effect is such that
Speaker 1: it stretches it out into a stream, and it's a
Speaker 1: messy stream. It's not like a clear, easy going stream,
Speaker 1: and it changes from point to point around the Earth,
Speaker 1: and depending on the time of the year and even
Speaker 1: time of the day. I would imagine, but it stretches
Speaker 1: it out, and sometimes when the the difference in temperature
Speaker 1: is so extreme, the jet stream can actually come down
Speaker 1: further south. And that's what happens. Remember when we get
Speaker 1: a polar vortex every once in a while, that's the
Speaker 1: northern polar cell extending like so powerfully into the United States,
Speaker 1: into the heart of the feral cell where most of
Speaker 1: us in the US live. Right. I just think that's
Speaker 1: fascinating And if you want us see that like in action,
Speaker 1: there's a really cool video called NASA Satellite Sees Polar
Speaker 1: Vortex on the move and it it's I guess satellite
Speaker 1: imagery um of the moving polar cell as it creates
Speaker 1: a polar vortex. It's pretty cool and it kind of
Speaker 1: gets across, like I said, just how messy the jet
Speaker 1: stream can be. No, it's awesome. Uh this, you know,
Speaker 1: I think it's pretty cool. Ed points out that it
Speaker 1: was really World War Two where we saw where we
Speaker 1: really started to understand the benefits of the jet stream
Speaker 1: because there were just so many more planes than ever before.
Speaker 1: People are like, wait a minute, there's this, Uh, there's
Speaker 1: a jet stream up there, and we can really use
Speaker 1: this to save time and fuel and money and get
Speaker 1: advantage on our enemies, perhaps because we're moving faster. And
Speaker 1: even though in the eighteen hundreds they you might see
Speaker 1: volcanic smoke like hundreds and hundreds of miles away, thousands
Speaker 1: of miles because it got caught in the jet stream
Speaker 1: and like they recognized this, but there weren't planes, so
Speaker 1: they didn't really understand, Like it didn't really matter based
Speaker 1: to cly because we're here on Earth. Who cares? Yes,
Speaker 1: So what we've been talking about so far, Chuck, Like
Speaker 1: the jet stream, uh is a it's a very high
Speaker 1: altitude parcel of air or movement of air stream of air.
Speaker 1: I guess I'll just go ahead and call it that.
Speaker 1: But there's other things that also like affect um wind
Speaker 1: as well, and it has to do with the differential
Speaker 1: between um the land and the sea, and then also
Speaker 1: the topography of the land as well. Yeah, so if
Speaker 1: you've ever gone to the beach at all, you know
Speaker 1: that it's cooler near the beach and near the ocean
Speaker 1: than it is inland. If you ever lived in Los Angeles.
Speaker 1: I think Matt Graining had a very funny quote years ago.
Speaker 1: Someone interviewed him, what do they say they said something like,
Speaker 1: if you could give advice to anyone about living in
Speaker 1: Los Angeles, what would it be. And he said, I
Speaker 1: think he always said was it's cooler near the ocean
Speaker 1: than it is inland. Something some very kind of funny
Speaker 1: quip about that. But it's it's true. Know when you
Speaker 1: when you drive towards the beach in l A just
Speaker 1: gets the air gets cleaner and cooler, and it's like
Speaker 1: someone flicked on the air conditioner generally. And that's because
Speaker 1: those uh temperature differences that we talked about of water
Speaker 1: and land, Like the sun is heating this stuff up.
Speaker 1: It's heating up all that inland, asphalt and everything else,
Speaker 1: even the ground and the grass, and it's heating the
Speaker 1: water uh differently, and the air goo that air goes
Speaker 1: not right, is it? Therefore first while oh I never
Speaker 1: gets out like that, So airswile. The reflection, the reflected
Speaker 1: heat is going to be different over the water than
Speaker 1: over the land, and the land is obviously going to
Speaker 1: be warmer, so the air above it is warmer. That
Speaker 1: air is gonna rise and create a low pressure system
Speaker 1: and it's gonna pull that cooler air from the water
Speaker 1: back toward the land and if you're on the beach
Speaker 1: or near the beach, you're just getting the benefit of
Speaker 1: that cooler air being builled in. Yeah, and if that
Speaker 1: didn't happen, that Frank Sinatra song Summer Wind would not exist.
Speaker 1: Even more importantly, there would not be one of the
Speaker 1: greatest endings to any Simpson ever. Speaking of Matt Greening
Speaker 1: the end of the Bart of Darkness one where Bart
Speaker 1: breaks his leg and ends up doing a spoof of
Speaker 1: rear window and the Simpsons get a pool. Uh, and
Speaker 1: Martin Prince gets a pool to compete and he wants
Speaker 1: to be popular too, but his pool bursts and somebody
Speaker 1: I think Nelson monts pants is him and he just
Speaker 1: stands there singing Summer Wind at the very end with
Speaker 1: his pants pulled down around his ankle. I don't remember that.
Speaker 1: It's it's as good as that episodes, just fantastic. That's
Speaker 1: where mill Pool came from its top notch. I love
Speaker 1: that song too, It's so great. Yeah, So we need
Speaker 1: to talk about mountains too, because you know, we talked
Speaker 1: about ocean and how that kind of the ocean and
Speaker 1: how that topography can change how wind acts. But mountains,
Speaker 1: you know, simply get in the way of wind. If
Speaker 1: if you've ever been hiking, it's much windy or on
Speaker 1: the top of a mountain because there's simply nothing in
Speaker 1: the way, and that has a lot of weird effects
Speaker 1: on how the wind travels. Right. Yeah, Like, um, if
Speaker 1: there's like a gap in between mountains, it actually funnels
Speaker 1: the wind together, which makes it much higher pressure because
Speaker 1: it's just there's a lot more air in one smaller space. Um.
Speaker 1: That can definitely affect wind speeds. And then also when
Speaker 1: it hits the mountain, like you said, because the mountain
Speaker 1: got in its way, it goes up and then comes
Speaker 1: down the other side, and on the other side there's
Speaker 1: all sorts of weird turbulence that is really hard to
Speaker 1: plan for, which is apparently why um, flying in and
Speaker 1: out of Las Vegas can be a difficult takeoff or
Speaker 1: landing because of that turbulence from I think wind coming
Speaker 1: from the west to the east. Yeah. I feel like
Speaker 1: there's been a lot of movies where like a helicopter
Speaker 1: crash has happened in real life range Yeah, movies based
Speaker 1: on real things probably exactly. Um, So you want to
Speaker 1: take a break, chuck, and then talk about all the
Speaker 1: things that wind does for us. Yeah, win does a
Speaker 1: lot of things, all right, So we're going to talk
Speaker 1: about what wind does. What good are you wind? Um? Well,
Speaker 1: if you like weather, you can thank wind because wind
Speaker 1: basically creates the weather that we feel as humans walking
Speaker 1: around on planet Earth. It's gonna pick up moisture and
Speaker 1: then drop that moisture again and give us beautiful, cleansing rain.
Speaker 1: It's gonna affect the temperature because like we said, it's moving, uh,
Speaker 1: air of different different temperatures all over the Earth, and
Speaker 1: that air is going to change the temperature where you're standing. Yeah.
Speaker 1: I mean it's weird you think about weather. It's just
Speaker 1: wind plus water mixed together in different interesting ways. But
Speaker 1: that's it. Oh I thought that was the definition of comedy.
Speaker 1: Oh no, wait, that's tragedy plus time. Yeah. Yeah, man,
Speaker 1: you just busted my brain. Wind plus water not the same.
Speaker 1: So um, depending on where you are um on the Earth. Uh,
Speaker 1: there it can be windier than other places. And in fact,
Speaker 1: I think for for a long time, for a good
Speaker 1: seventy years, maybe eighty. Um. The highest wind speed record
Speaker 1: ever recorded was on top of a mountain in New Hampshire. Um.
Speaker 1: It was exactly Mount Washington part of the Presidential Mountains.
Speaker 1: It turns out, get this, there's like President Jefferson, President Washington,
Speaker 1: and then President Eisenhower. The mountains. Yeah, that's the name
Speaker 1: of the mountains in this Presidential Mountain range. I just
Speaker 1: think that one sticks out a little bit so UM
Speaker 1: on this mountain they recorded uh wind speed of two
Speaker 1: d and thirty one and that stood all the way
Speaker 1: until I think two thousand eleven when it was finally confirmed.
Speaker 1: That's something that had happened years before in Australia. Um
Speaker 1: uh knocked the Mount Washington record off of the top
Speaker 1: of the peak. I guess as it were. Yeah, I
Speaker 1: think this was in ninety six is when it actually happened.
Speaker 1: There was a two hundred and fifty three mile in
Speaker 1: our gust. But this was the interesting thing here is
Speaker 1: this was during a tropical cyclone. It was named Olivia
Speaker 1: at Barrow Island, Australia, and I think, like you mentioned,
Speaker 1: it was only confirmed in But the interesting thing is
Speaker 1: it's the Mountain Washington. This was not a hurricane happening
Speaker 1: obviously in uh Mountain Washington, New Hampshire. This was just
Speaker 1: a massive pressure gradient and multiple storm sort of sort
Speaker 1: of like the perfect storm crashing into one another. And
Speaker 1: then obviously you know out Washington that we are were
Speaker 1: already talked about the wind being greater at the top
Speaker 1: of a mountain, but usually like you would expect a
Speaker 1: wind record to be during a hurricane, and that wasn't
Speaker 1: the case. No, But also I've read that the jet
Speaker 1: stream dips frequently near Mount Washington, and so it had
Speaker 1: the advantage of the jet stream adding in there too.
Speaker 1: Apparently they build themselves as the world's worst the place
Speaker 1: with the world's worst weather, like they have hurricane forced winds, Yeah,
Speaker 1: like a hundred days of the year, and they are
Speaker 1: definitely hanging onto their there um, their their status as
Speaker 1: much as they can. I think in tornadoes we should
Speaker 1: point out don't count because you can. You know, there
Speaker 1: have been three hundred plus smile in our winds during tornadoes,
Speaker 1: and they those are just separate records. Yeah. And then actually,
Speaker 1: like we measure wind speeds from things like cyclones and
Speaker 1: hurricanes certain ways. So there's a scale called the seth
Speaker 1: Here Simpson scale, which I'm sure we talked about in
Speaker 1: a Hurricanes episode, but that ranges for category one to
Speaker 1: category five, and they based it on wind speed and
Speaker 1: potential for for damage. And then for tornadoes, there's a
Speaker 1: scale that also has to do with damage, like how
Speaker 1: destructive the tornado was. It's the enhanced Fujita scale, and
Speaker 1: it goes from zero to five. I think we talked
Speaker 1: about that in or What's What's What's it like inside
Speaker 1: a tornado episode? Yeah, because one one person survived it
Speaker 1: and told their story and everyone's been writing that story
Speaker 1: since then. That's exactly right, all right. We can go
Speaker 1: through some of the more things that wind does because
Speaker 1: it's pretty remarkable. It didn't just give us weather. Uh.
Speaker 1: If you've ever been to the beach and looked at
Speaker 1: waves and thought they were kind of cool, you can
Speaker 1: think the wind for that. Uh. And we're not talking about, obviously, uh,
Speaker 1: like under the surface of the ocean where tidal forces
Speaker 1: are at work. We're talking about winds blowing across the
Speaker 1: surface of the ocean and literally pushing ocean water in uh,
Speaker 1: circulating this water and what's called a gyre, which can
Speaker 1: move you know, it could be great, can move nutrients
Speaker 1: and and stuff like that and help marine mammals with
Speaker 1: their migration patterns and stuff like our marine animals with
Speaker 1: their migration, but can also move around great garbage patches,
Speaker 1: as we've talked about in the Best Yeah, we did
Speaker 1: an episode on that too. Um Ed uses this example
Speaker 1: of how water can actually pile up, which is just
Speaker 1: so fascinating to me. When wind is strong enough and
Speaker 1: um and persistent enough, it can actually push water so
Speaker 1: that like the either end of a lake like Lake
Speaker 1: Erie can have a difference in in um surface level
Speaker 1: of like fifteen feet, Like it's just all the water
Speaker 1: happens to be on the east end at that time
Speaker 1: because the wind, these seasonal winds pushed it down that way.
Speaker 1: That's just nuts, Like I always think waters level, it's
Speaker 1: just always what level. Nope, our friend wind makes it
Speaker 1: not so. Yeah, And I think Lake Erie is even
Speaker 1: a standout and that it's at one end and it's
Speaker 1: called it's a phenomenon called a sage. But from what
Speaker 1: I read I looked up on stage is a little more.
Speaker 1: I think that's usually water piled up higher at both
Speaker 1: ends and it's lower in the middle. It's like less
Speaker 1: oscillation in the middle. Like most they kind of likened
Speaker 1: it to a seesaw, Like if you look at the
Speaker 1: center of a seesaw, it doesn't you know, it's not
Speaker 1: moving as much as both ends are. But I guess
Speaker 1: in Lake Erie it just that wind goes one direction
Speaker 1: and it's just stacking up there, yeah side and um
Speaker 1: the planet tilts a little bit when it gets too
Speaker 1: piled up on one side of Lake Erie? Does it really?
Speaker 1: I don't think so. Maybe, but probably not in any
Speaker 1: way we're equipped to detect. At this point. You can
Speaker 1: really take advantage of how little I understand all this
Speaker 1: just by saying things like that for the series. All right,
Speaker 1: good to know. I wish you would have told me
Speaker 1: that at the outside of that. Yeah, you could just
Speaker 1: make fun of me this whole time. Another thing wind
Speaker 1: does is help spread plants far and wide across this
Speaker 1: earth because a bunch of plane it's have evolved to
Speaker 1: disperse their seeds by hitching a ride on the wind.
Speaker 1: Huh sure, I mean some plants, A lot of plants
Speaker 1: are built to do just that, whether it's the way
Speaker 1: there where they're shaped. Like you know, if you think
Speaker 1: about a little uh, a little dandelion, and you talk
Speaker 1: about something that was made to move with the wind,
Speaker 1: what are those whirly gigs, the helicopters, what what tree
Speaker 1: is that. Are they maples that do that? I don't know, man,
Speaker 1: I always call them helicopters. Yeah, but it's like, um,
Speaker 1: it's almost like a more like a close hanger, like
Speaker 1: the old fat wooden ones with a seed in each
Speaker 1: and to balance it out, and it just spins down. Yeah,
Speaker 1: like a helicopter rotor. And I mean like they were
Speaker 1: all over when I was a kid. But I cannot,
Speaker 1: for the life of me remember what tree they came
Speaker 1: out of. Yeah, and I don't think I feel like
Speaker 1: I see them like I used to. Huh. I wonder
Speaker 1: some species has gone extinct. No, someone will let us
Speaker 1: know what it is. I'm sure they're everywhere, but that
Speaker 1: was certainly made to move on the wind. Um Ed's
Speaker 1: pointed out something I had no idea. It's kind of
Speaker 1: a cool little factoid, which is when you go out
Speaker 1: west and see first of all, when you see your
Speaker 1: first legit tumbleweed. It's kind of a nice moment because
Speaker 1: it just seems like something from the movies. But when
Speaker 1: you see it, you're like, oh, wait a minute, that's
Speaker 1: that's a real thing that happens. There are tumbleweeds out west. Um,
Speaker 1: they're dropping seeds all along the way thanks to wind. Yeah,
Speaker 1: so there's the dispersal unit is what you call it. Stu. Uh.
Speaker 1: It also carries dust for better for worse. Um. We
Speaker 1: did an episode on desertification. We also did one on droughts,
Speaker 1: and in both of those they think we talked about
Speaker 1: the dust Bowl in the nineteen thirties where the middle
Speaker 1: of the United States was turned to do a desert
Speaker 1: because we didn't know what we were doing with soil
Speaker 1: tilling until they do erosion terrible drought. It's some really
Speaker 1: high winds that just basically blew all the soil westward,
Speaker 1: I believe, and blew basically everyone who lived in Oklahoma
Speaker 1: westward as well. Um to settle out in California. Um.
Speaker 1: It can also over time, over long enough time where
Speaker 1: down you know those same geological features that get in
Speaker 1: its way. Huh sure, I mean the mountain uh uh.
Speaker 1: The Apple Chians are smaller now than they used to be,
Speaker 1: and that's because wind wind is just sort of a
Speaker 1: roaded those over time. And they're still wonderful and great,
Speaker 1: but there it's not like the Rocky Mountains out west. No,
Speaker 1: but they're about four million years older than the Rocky
Speaker 1: so give them here. But so as wing taketh away,
Speaker 1: wind also giveth um. And they think actually because of
Speaker 1: dust storms from North Africa from the Sahara being kicked
Speaker 1: up and carried all the way across the Atlantic UM
Speaker 1: which actually sometimes if it's good enough or strong enough,
Speaker 1: can cut down on hurricane season rather dramatically because it
Speaker 1: keeps UM type systems from forming. But they suspect that
Speaker 1: possibly this dust, which is nutrient rich um, which made
Speaker 1: land makes land in some part in South America, UM
Speaker 1: may have contributed to the Amazon rainforest being so so lush.
Speaker 1: That's amazing it is. And Chuck, what's causing that? When
Speaker 1: that's right, But like you said, it can take it
Speaker 1: the way. Wind can carry disease in that dust as well.
Speaker 1: And they're also from Africa. They think there have been
Speaker 1: some meningitis outbreaks around the world because of these harmontton
Speaker 1: winds that have carried it with the dust. And I
Speaker 1: guess the theory is that uh, dust particles are going
Speaker 1: to carry a virus more effectively from person to person.
Speaker 1: I know they've even talked about that with COVID. Yeah, yeah,
Speaker 1: I remember that too. Like the reason my masks are
Speaker 1: effective because I know At first there was a lot
Speaker 1: of people going, oh, these particles are so small they
Speaker 1: can get right through those mass. But the particles are
Speaker 1: carried on droplets and the droplets don't get through the
Speaker 1: same theory with the dust. Very nice. Thank you for
Speaker 1: the COVID update two. It's been a little while. Yeah,
Speaker 1: it's still out there everyone, Just in case you're wondering, Yeah,
Speaker 1: hasn't gone anywhere. You've got anything else about wind one
Speaker 1: of the coolest things on the planet. No, yeah, it does. Um,
Speaker 1: if you want to know more about whin than just
Speaker 1: start researching. Maybe you'll be a meteorologist. You can pick
Speaker 1: up where Chuck left off. And since I said that,
Speaker 1: it's time for listener mail pick up I left off,
Speaker 1: which is to say, after one class made a cn
Speaker 1: you gotta start somewhere. All right, This is I'm just
Speaker 1: gonna say, this is a one of the nicest thank
Speaker 1: you is that we've gotten in a long time, and
Speaker 1: it just it's been a lot to me. So we're
Speaker 1: reading it. Hey, guys want to write in and thank
Speaker 1: you for putting the superb content out in the world
Speaker 1: for people to enjoy. Appreciate that you're showing forms and educates,
Speaker 1: but even more importantly to me, your opinions give me
Speaker 1: perspective on my own thoughts and beliefs, and I often
Speaker 1: find myself participating in introspection to check myself on outdated
Speaker 1: ideas that haven't been challenged by my friends and peers.
Speaker 1: You bring a modern, thoughtful approach to your outlooks on life,
Speaker 1: and I can't tell you how helpful it is to
Speaker 1: have that presented in a friendly and accessible way. It
Speaker 1: takes work curating one's media and take nowadays to avoid negativity,
Speaker 1: divisiveness and bias, and having a platform like stuff. You
Speaker 1: should know that I trust to always put the best
Speaker 1: foot forward we try to. My friend is immensely appreciated
Speaker 1: the impact you both had on me and countless other
Speaker 1: people help shape a healthier, happier and more inclusive generation.
Speaker 1: For that, thank you hardly cuts it, I know, right man,
Speaker 1: that was one of the best. Thank you If you're
Speaker 1: ever in Austin the barbecue and the drinks around me,
Speaker 1: and that is from our new best friend Tom tap
Speaker 1: It gets even better. He offered barbecue and drinks for free,
Speaker 1: chuck for free. You know not to do that, Tom,
Speaker 1: but if we ever come, how about this. We ever
Speaker 1: come back to Austin. Tom, you my friend and you're
Speaker 1: plus one are on the guest list listed listed, Tom
Speaker 1: just got listed. Just write write as an email from
Speaker 1: that same thread Tom, to remind us and say, hey, buddy,
Speaker 1: remember me you promised me free tickets. Yeah, and to
Speaker 1: prove you are who you say you are. Tom. Well,
Speaker 1: I mean, if someone wants to go through trouble getting
Speaker 1: a fake idea that says Tom dappy, then I guess
Speaker 1: that could probably work. I would not encourage that and says, hey,
Speaker 1: I'm the guy, but my name is you know, Bobby Juniper,
Speaker 1: damn top, damn top, gotta mixed up. I don't know
Speaker 1: where Bobby Juniper came from. This hotel chicken name. That's
Speaker 1: a great one. Uh. It suggests that you smell really nice,
Speaker 1: you know. And all you need to do is make
Speaker 1: that suggestion and people will take it and run with it.
Speaker 1: And as far as they're concerned, you do smell nice.
Speaker 1: If you want to be like Tom and send us
Speaker 1: one of the greatest, nicest thank you ever, we would
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