How does the spinning of the earth cause the whole atmosphere to spin along with it at the same speed?

Answer 1

The spinning of the Earth affects the Earth's water by creating currents and winds. The spinning of the earth is necessary to complete the water cycle and establish weather patterns.

Answer 2

The spinning of the Earth creates a centrifugal force that pushes air molecules outward. This force causes the atmosphere to move and rotate with the Earth, keeping pace with its rotation. The atmosphere ultimately spins in conjunction with the Earth due to the influence of this force.

Answer 3

It's simple - the atmosphere can't help it. The earth has been spinning all this time. And yes, there are coriolis forces and such that cause all manner of neat things to happen in the atmosphere. But if the atmosphere tried to slow down, the drag placed on it by the surface features would eventually cause it to "come along for the ride" and move with the earth. Let's think about an experiment. Put a big bowl of water on a turntable. Float some toothpicks on the surface to provide some visual indication. Start turning the turntable. At first the water doesn't move with the bowl, but eventually, if the turntable is continuously turned at a nice, even rate, the water will all be moving with the bowl and the turntable. There is initially little friction between the sides of the bowl and the water, but time is on the side of the turntable, just like time is on the side of the earth. What is in the bowl or on the earth will eventually move with it. And the earth has been turning for at least a few hundred years.

Answer 4

Any spinning object has the tendency to continue spinning. The initial spin comes from the formation of the Solar System and Earth; any large asteroid hitting the Earth (and adding to its mass) will give it a spin, unless it happens to hit the Earth head-on.

Answer 5

Momentum. Once you start something spinning, it takes something to stop it. If that something is a planet of billions of kilograms of mass moving at many thousands of metres per second and what you use to stop it is very small, that stopping will take millions, probably billions of years to be even noticeable.

Answer 6

Angular momentum KEEPS the Earth rotating on its axis; it _IS_ spinning, and there isn't any force applied to stop it from spinning, and it would take a LOT of force so slow down (or to speed up) the rotation of any planet. In fact, the force required would most likely destroy the planet.

But how did it START spinning? We cannot be certain, but everything in the universe seems to rotate; the Sun, most of the planets, most asteroids, the Milky Way galaxy itself, all of these have substantial angular momentum. (Venus, which rotates once in 243 days, may have the least angular momentum of any large object we know of. Yet.)

We believe that the primordial planetary nebula from which the solar system formed probably was rotating itself, or perhaps was shocked into rotation by the explosion of a nearby supernova. When the nebular began to collapse under its own gravity, it would have retained its angular momentum, which probably caused each of the planetary bodies to rotate on their own.

There is one other thing that may have - probably did - contribute to the rotation of the Earth. We believe that the very-young proto-Earth, perhaps 50 million years after its forming, probably collided with another planet. This object, sometimes named "Theia" for the Greek goddess who gave birth to the Moon-goddess Selene, may have been as large as the planet Mars!

The collision would have destroyed and reshaped the proto-Earth, and the planetary cores of both objects probably merged, with a substantial amount of the crustal material of each planet having been blasted into space, where it probably recombined to form the Moon. That collision probably gave the merged Earth its spin, and may have contributed to the axial tilt of the Earth.

Answer 7

it is called the earths orbit around the sun makes it spin

because if it wasn't some places would not have any sunlight making it impossible to live for you could not tell if it was night or morning and your eyes actually do have to have light for our eyes to be able to see!

Answer 8

The Earth rotates about its axis in a counter-clockwise direction, as viewed from an observation point above the north pole.

The rotational period is, on average, one day, or 24 hours, as compared with the Sun. That is known as the tropical day. The rotational period is, on average, about 23 hours and 56 minutes, as compared to the distant stars. That is known as the sidereal day.

The reason for these two different rotational periods is that, while the Earth is rotating about its axis, it is also revolving (orbiting) around the Sun, also in a counter-clockwise direction, and, by the time one sidereal day occurs, the Earth has moved in its revolution, and it needs another four minutes to catch up with the same reference point on the Sun.

The Earth's axis is tilted about 23.5 degrees with respect to the plane of its revolution around the Sun. This causes the seasons, as the north and south poles become closer and further from the Sun, in the Earth's annual revolution around the Sun.

Answer 9

To circulate around areas of high or low pressure, instead of moving straight away from them or into them. This sort of thing is usually called the "Coriolis effect"

There are other phenomena too, such as the global wind patterns that are caused by the spinning Earth. (The mathematics needed to explain wind directions is complicated.)

Generally, wind is deflected to the right in the Northern hemisphere.

The wind is deflected to the left in the Southern Hemisphere.

So, the simple answer to this question is " move to the right " (in the

Northern hemisphere).

Answer 10

The spin of the Earth is the net angular momentum of the bits and pieces from which it accumulated.

Due to the tides caused by the Moon, the energy dissipated by the tides is transferred to the Moon as an increase in its net energy - and represented by the Moon moving a slight bit further away.

And of course, a decrease in Earth's energy, as a slightly longer spin period. This is the cause of the "leap seconds" occasionally added to our clocks.

[Some of the energy of the tides is of course dissipated as heat on Earth.]