"Mark Browne" wrote in message news:5v9Rb.119393$Rc4.934399@attbi_s54...
"basskisser" wrote in message
om...
snip
Mark, in a nutshell, SOME wind is produced by convection. But, how do
you account for winds when convection has stopped, ie: surface temps.
stabilize.
In short, it's the Jetstream. Now, what does the jet stream at high
altitudes have to do with it, you ask? NOAA has excellent publications
answering just those questions. The short answer it a lot.

The sun constantly blasts the earth with a kilowatt per square meter. Even
If we can't see it on an overcast day, it's up there. This drives the
massive convection circuit we call the jet streams. This drives a massive
conveyer belt of warm from the warm equator to the cold poles. Convection
never stops. There may be local (for us) pools of still air. This does not
change the fact that a river of air flow by far overhead.

The seeming random local weather can be thought of in much the same way as
random bubbles of movement in a boiling pot - just a lot bigger and slower.
The moving air is shaped by the Coriolis effect to form rotating pools of
air. From our prospective the air seems relatively still.

If you discount very small special cases (turbulence around a volcano) all
air movement ultimately derives from solar heating.

What's that - you ask about hurricanes? Solar heating of the water causing
rising moist air! The Coriolis effect shapes this into cyclonic circulation.

Mark Browne

Mark, again, there are many, many NOAA publications available on the
web, and in print, that explains weather patterns, winds, etc. much
more clearly than I ever could here. Good reading.