Dragging Clouds

Science or Pseudo-Science

I’m not very good at maths. This is odd for I have off-spring who have degrees in Mathematics and Physics. Some part of the genome has passed me by. My old man was quite good at arithmetic. He could add up someone’s milk bill on the fly and get the answer – always erring on the side of the larger amount, I believe.

I only preface this piece in order that no-one says, “This is dead easy, you fool!” (They may say that anyway)

So we have gravity. I understand the Newtonian theory of gravity (the one with the apple). Gravity is directly proportional to the mass of two objects and inversely proportional to the distance between them. Seems fairly straight-forward. Some odd bits arise. When you jump in the air you are attracted to the earth and soon find yourself back where you started. What people find harder to compute is that the earth is also attracted to you – but because the earth is so much more massive than a person, the earth still comes up to meet you - it is just too small to measure.

To be clear, what we observe is the effect of gravity not gravity itself. “In theories of quantum gravity, the graviton is the hypothetical quantum of gravity, an elementary particle that mediates the force of gravity. There is no complete quantum field theory of gravitons due to an outstanding mathematical problem with re-normalization in general relativity.” Clear? I thought so!

What science is saying is that we can observe the effects of gravity but we do not really understand how it works. Some science – oh yea!

So, what has this got to do with dragging clouds?

Matter is in three states. Solid (like the Earth), liquid (like the ocean) and gas (like the atmosphere).

So when the solid earth spins on its axis (as it does once in 24 hours) do the ocean and atmosphere follow at the same rate? Common sense and a little bit of science would suggest that the water moves along at a slower rate and the atmosphere at a much slower rate. Imagine it as the solid earth moving and dragging the oceans and air along with it. (Gravity!)

Now what I want to know is: if my theory is correct, what effect does it have on the weather?

When we look at the weather map we see area of high and low pressure. The uneven heating of the earth causes the air to rise (low pressure) in places and fall (high pressure) in other places. This is the main cause of the wind and our ever-changing weather.

But, take the example of a high pressure area centred over the British Isles. In winter this gives us dry and frosty conditions. - in summer dry and warm.

However, the weather map only concerns itself with the pressure. No account is given to the rotation of the earth under the various areas of high or low pressure. Perhaps changes in pressure cancel out the rotational factors or perhaps the rotational factors are so small as to be not very important.

Does the rotation of the earth affect the changes in the weather?

Could someone please explain?