Page:Popular Science Monthly Volume 76.djvu/446

442 air moves into this circle on spirals, then there will be a certain amount of the air moving perpendicular to the plane of the circle. This whole action of spiral movement inward and vertical motion from the plane is called a curl and it depends upon vortex laws. In a tornado or hurricane the curl is illustrated by air which ascends as a current while the air is moved inward along certain spirals. It is also illustrated in electricity and magnetism where an electric current passing around the helix surrounds a magnetic field perpendicular to the sections of the tube along which the electric current is flowing. Electric currents and magnetic fields are also related to each other by the law of the curl, and this evidently goes back to the idea of the helix or vertical spiral.

We may now resume our discussion of the circulation of the air on the rotating earth, repeating to some extent what has been said in defining these special terms. Take a globe and in the tropics place an arrow pointing westward between the equator and the latitude of 33° both north and south. To the north of 33° place an arrow pointing eastward, and in the southern hemisphere to the south of 33° place an arrow also pointing eastward. These represent in a general way the action of the atmosphere as consisting of two great whirls in each hemisphere, thus composing a torque on a hemispherical scale. Draw a ring around the earth in latitude 33°, cutting out a section of the atmosphere. If this ring moves northward it will evidently contract, and to have the same angular momentum, that is, mass energy, it must rotate faster about the axis as it approaches the pole. This constitutes in a way an illustration of vortex action whereby a particle passes from an outer to an inner tube and consequently revolves faster about the axis. Take another section south of latitude 33°, cutting out a ring of atmosphere. If this ring moves southward it must rotate slower because it is moving to a region at greater distance from the earth's axis if it is to retain the same momentum or energy of mass in motion. The importance of these great torques in the earth's atmosphere can be seen from this general fact that while the weight of the earth's atmosphere taken as a whole is very great, and is, generally speaking, in vigorous motion, yet the currents as a whole are so interbalanced that the mass energy moving eastward is exactly equal to the mass energy moving westward when the whole atmosphere is summed up. This is proved by the fact that the rotation of the earth on its axis does not change by the smallest fraction of a second from century to century, or at least astronomers have been unable to detect any change in the period of the earth's rotation so long as observations have been continued. If this balance of eastward and westward momentum were not perfect, it would immediately be shown by a change in the period of the rotation of the earth upon its axis.