Images & Animations
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Credit
Jacques Descloitres, MODIS Land Rapid Response Team, NASA/GSFC
To the east of snow-covered Siberia (upper left), an area of low air pressure over the Bering Sea is drawing air toward its center in a counterclockwise swirl that illustrates the effect of the Coriolis force on northern hemisphere winds. When an area of low pressure occurs, air from areas of higher pressure move toward it in the atmosphere's ongoing attempt to reach equilibrium. Because of the rotation of the Earth, the air doesn't move in a straight line towards the low, however, and in the northern hemisphere takes on a counterclockwise path. In the southern hemisphere, the air around a low pressure center spins clockwise. Low-pressure systems are often associated with winter storms, and ones such as this can move across the Bering Sea and bring a blast of wintry weather to Alaska. This image was made from data collected by the Moderate-resolution Imaging Spectroradiometer (MODIS) on April 18, 2002.
Metadata
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Sensor
Terra/MODIS -
Visualization Date
2002-04-25
