Talk:Hadley cell
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[edit] Dwindrim image
Dwindrim: The "number objects" you hav eused in your image are too small to read. Could you please make them bigger or perhaps upload a bigger version of the whole picture?
I also would very much appreciate it, if for no other reason than that I think the whole Wikipedia including images should be licensed under GFDL, to replace your copyright notice with the one under (from Wikipedia:Image description page).
Copyright Dwindrim. Permission is granted to copy, distribute and/or modify under the GFDL, version 1.2 any later version published by the Free Software Foundation; with no Invariant Sections, with no Front-Cover Texts, and with no Back-Cover Texts.
---Dittaeva 11:03, 9 Feb 2004 (UTC)
[edit] Singular or plural?
Is it correct to tlk about Hadley Cells? Rich Farmbrough. 13:06, 30 December 2005 (UTC)
[edit] Other way around?
The article reads: "It is at this point the Coriolis force evidences itself, leading to a clockwise rotation in the northern hemisphere and a counterclockwise rotation on the southern hemisphere".
The other way around, perhaps?
- Why? I always make sign errors, but... we have mid-lat westerlies, and tropical easterlies, which implies a clockwise circ for air moving from mid-lat to trop. And the same, aloft. William M. Connolley 11:31, 26 February 2006 (UTC)
- Incidentally... if this is confusing because lows in the NH spin counter-clockwise... see http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Coriolis_effect#Flow_around_a_low-pressure_area - the crucial point being that CF is *outwards* balanced by PGF inwards. I hope. William M. Connolley 11:38, 26 February 2006 (UTC)
[edit] Extraneous Material
The article reads: "As with any idealized system, it is important to realize that it is precisely that. A Hadley cell is bound as much by the laws of chaos as by the laws of thermodynamics, and what is here today may be there, or somewhere else, tomorrow."
If no one objects, I'm going to trim this heavily -- it's not specific to the topic.
kraemer 21:22, 4 July 2006 (UTC)
[edit] Poorly written
This article is very poorly written, and not being an expert in this field, I wouldn't even know how to fix all of it. Let's look at the first paragraph, as an example:
The major driving force of atmospheric circulation is solar heating, which on average is largest near the equator and decreases as one moves polewards. The atmospheric circulation tries to eliminate this gradient by transporting energy polewards from the tropics to higher latitudes. The mechanisms by which the atmosphere decides to accomplish this task are very different in tropical latitudes than in the rest of the atmosphere.
The major driving force of atmospheric circulation is solar heating: This is an awful first sentence, for a number of reasons. First, there is no indication as to what all this has to do with a Hadley cell until the end of the 2nd paragraph. Moreover, the wording is poor. Using the phrase "Major driving force...is solar heating" involves using the literary device of personification, which probably shouldn't be used in a formal text like this. polewards: I can guess what this means, but it is a technical term that probably shouldn't be used the very first time the concept "towards the Earth's poles" is mentioned. Perhaps write out "towards the Earth's poles" for the first mention, then use "polewards" for later mentions. The atmospheric circulation: does this really need the article "the"? this gradient: What gradient? The difference in solar heating? NB: this isn't a problem with English per se (in case a non-native speaker wrote the article), but a more general problem of having an ambiguous discourse referrant. At any rate, even if this does refer to the difference in solar heating, it still doesn't make any sense: atmospheric circulation can elimate differences in heat (noun), but not differences in heating (verb). polewards from the tropics to higher latitudes: sloppy, is there anything else polewards could mean? You need to put "i.e." or "in other words," here. the atmosphere decides...: the atmosphere cannot decide anything, it is inanimate. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 129.215.218.236 (talk) 15:47, 27 September 2006
- (Actually, this is not true . It makes no sense to talk about reducing the gradient in "heat" -- this terminology went out of style in the 19th century with the caloric theory of heat -- thermodynamics teaches us to talk about heating rates, not heat. And the energy transport by the atmospehre does reduce the gradient in net heating rates, by changing the infrared cooling that is a function of temperature -- climateguru).