How does the earth spin on its axis and does the speed affect weather?
Dear David, The Earth’s spin is mostly an accumulation of the spin that was contained in the huge number of chunks that went into building up the Earth at the beginning of its existence. Major effects since then have been tidal forces caused by the Sun and Moon and a slow transfer of energy to the Moon’s orbital speed. The effect of the Earth’s rotation on the weather is two-fold. First, the daily cycle of the Sun drives local weather circulations, most notably seabreeze/landbreeze circulations and the afternoon maximum in thunderstorms over land. The speed of rotation governs how long these circulations have to become established and evolve. The second effect of the Earth’s rotation is that the rotation causes a Coriolis acceleration, causing things moving horizontally to curve to the right. The strength of the Coriolis acceleration depends on the speed of the Earth’s rotation, and a stronger Coriolis acceleration makes large-scale weather systems more important compared to local or r
