Coriolis force

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"Coriolis effect" redirects here. For the psychophysical perception effect, see Coriolis
effect (perception). For the 1994 short film, see The Coriolis Effect (film).

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In the inertial frame of reference (upper part of the picture), the black ball moves in a straight line. However, the
observer (red dot) who is standing in the rotating/non-inertial frame of reference (lower part of the picture) sees
the object as following a curved path due to the Coriolis and centrifugal forces present in this frame.

In physics, the Coriolis force is an inertial or fictitious force[1] that acts on objects that

are in motion within a frame of reference that rotates with respect to an inertial frame. In
a reference frame with clockwise rotation, the force acts to the left of the motion of the
object. In one with anticlockwise (or counterclockwise) rotation, the force acts to the
right. Deflection of an object due to the Coriolis force is called the Coriolis effect.
Though recognized previously by others, the mathematical expression for the Coriolis
force appeared in an 1835 paper by French scientist Gaspard-Gustave de Coriolis, in
connection with the theory of water wheels.[2] Early in the 20th century, the term Coriolis
force began to be used in connection with meteorology.
Newton's laws of motion describe the motion of an object in an inertial (non-
accelerating) frame of reference. When Newton's laws are transformed to a rotating
frame of reference, the Coriolis and centrifugal accelerations appear. When applied to
massive objects, the respective forces are proportional to the masses of them. The
Coriolis force is proportional to the rotation rate and the centrifugal force is proportional
to the square of the rotation rate. The Coriolis force acts in a direction perpendicular to
the rotation axis and to the velocity of the body in the rotating frame and is proportional
to the object's speed in the rotating frame (more precisely, to the component of its
velocity that is perpendicular to the axis of rotation). The centrifugal force acts outwards
in the radial direction and is proportional to the distance of the body from the axis of the
rotating frame. These additional forces are termed inertial forces, fictitious
forces or pseudo forces.[3] By accounting for the rotation by addition of these fictitious
forces, Newton's laws of motion can be applied to a rotating system as though it was an
inertial system. They are correction factors which are not required in a non-rotating
system.[4]
In popular (non-technical) usage of the term "Coriolis effect", the rotating reference
frame implied is almost always the Earth. Because the Earth spins, Earth-bound
observers need to account for the Coriolis force to correctly analyze the motion of
objects. The Earth completes one rotation for each day/night cycle, so for motions of
everyday objects the Coriolis force is usually quite small compared with other forces; its
effects generally become noticeable only for motions occurring over large distances and
long periods of time, such as large-scale movement of air in the atmosphere or water in
the ocean; or where high precision is important, such as long-range artillery or missile
trajectories. Such motions are constrained by the surface of the Earth, so only the
horizontal component of the Coriolis force is generally important. This force causes
moving objects on the surface of the Earth to be deflected to the right (with respect to
the direction of travel) in the Northern Hemisphere and to the left in the Southern
Hemisphere. The horizontal deflection effect is greater near the poles, since the
effective rotation rate about a local vertical axis is largest there, and decreases to zero
at the equator.[5] Rather than flowing directly from areas of high pressure to low
pressure, as they would in a non-rotating system, winds and currents tend to flow to the
right of this direction north of the equator (anticlockwise) and to the left of this direction
south of it (clockwise). This effect is responsible for the rotation and thus formation
of cyclones (see Coriolis effects in meteorology).
For an intuitive explanation of the origin of the Coriolis force, consider an object,
constrained to follow the Earth's surface and moving northward in the Northern
Hemisphere. Viewed from outer space, the object does not appear to go due north, but
has an eastward motion (it rotates around toward the right along with the surface of the
Earth). The further north it travels, the smaller the "diameter of its parallel" (the minimum
distance from the surface point to the axis of rotation, which is in a plane orthogonal to
the axis), and so the slower the eastward motion of its surface. As the object moves
north, to higher latitudes, it has a tendency to maintain the eastward speed it started
with (rather than slowing down to match the reduced eastward speed of local objects on
the Earth's surface), so it veers east (i.e. to the right of its initial motion). [6][7]
Though not obvious from this example, which considers northward motion, the
horizontal deflection occurs equally for objects moving eastward or westward (or in any
other direction).[8] However, the theory that the effect determines the rotation of draining
water in a typical size household bathtub, sink or toilet has been repeatedly disproven
by modern-day scientists; the force is negligibly small compared to the many other
influences on the rotation.[9][10][11]

Contents

 1History
 2Formula
 3Length scales and the Rossby number
 4Simple cases
o 4.1Tossed ball on a rotating carousel
o 4.2Bounced ball
 5Applied to the Earth
o 5.1Rotating sphere
 o 5.2Meteorology
 5.2.1Flow around a low-pressure area
 5.2.2Inertial circles
 5.2.3Other terrestrial effects
o 5.3Eötvös effect
 5.3.1Intuitive example
o 5.4Draining in bathtubs and toilets
 5.4.1Laboratory testing of draining water under atypical conditions
o 5.5Ballistic trajectories
 6Visualization of the Coriolis effect
 7Coriolis effects in other areas
o 7.1Coriolis flow meter
o 7.2Molecular physics
o 7.3Gyroscopic precession
o 7.4Insect flight
o 7.5Lagrangian point stability
 8See also
 9Notes
 10References
o 10.1Further reading
 10.1.1Physics and meteorology
 10.1.2Historical
 11External links

History[edit]

Image from Cursus seu Mundus Mathematicus (1674) of C.F.M. Dechales, showing how a cannonball should
deflect to the right of its target on a rotating Earth, because the rightward motion of the ball is faster than that of
the tower.
Image from Cursus seu Mundus Mathematicus (1674) of C.F.M. Dechales, showing how a ball should fall from
a tower on a rotating Earth. The ball is released from F. The top of the tower moves faster than its base, so
while the ball falls, the base of the tower moves to I, but the ball, which has the eastward speed of the tower's
top, outruns the tower's base and lands further to the east at L.

Italian scientist Giovanni Battista Riccioli and his assistant Francesco Maria

Grimaldi described the effect in connection with artillery in the 1651 Almagestum
Novum, writing that rotation of the Earth should cause a cannonball fired to the north to
deflect to the east.[12] In 1674, Claude François Milliet Dechales described in his Cursus
seu Mundus Mathematicus how the rotation of the Earth should cause a deflection in
the trajectories of both falling bodies and projectiles aimed toward one of the planet's
poles. Riccioli, Grimaldi, and Dechales all described the effect as part of an argument
against the heliocentric system of Copernicus. In other words, they argued that the
Earth's rotation should create the effect, and so failure to detect the effect was evidence
for an immobile Earth.[13] The Coriolis acceleration equation was derived by Euler in
1749,[14][15] and the effect was described in the tidal equations of Pierre-Simon Laplace in
1778.[16]
Gaspard-Gustave Coriolis published a paper in 1835 on the energy yield of machines
with rotating parts, such as waterwheels.[17] That paper considered the supplementary
forces that are detected in a rotating frame of reference. Coriolis divided these
supplementary forces into two categories. The second category contained a force that
arises from the cross product of the angular velocity of a coordinate system and the
projection of a particle's velocity into a plane perpendicular to the system's axis of
rotation. Coriolis referred to this force as the "compound centrifugal force" due to its
analogies with the centrifugal force already considered in category one. [18][19] The effect
was known in the early 20th century as the "acceleration of Coriolis",[20] and by 1920 as
"Coriolis force".[21]
In 1856, William Ferrel proposed the existence of a circulation cell in the mid-latitudes
with air being deflected by the Coriolis force to create the prevailing westerly winds.[22]
The understanding of the kinematics of how exactly the rotation of the Earth affects
airflow was partial at first.[23] Late in the 19th century, the full extent of the large scale
interaction of pressure-gradient force and deflecting force that in the end causes air
masses to move along isobars was understood.[24]

Formula[edit]
See also: Fictitious force
In Newtonian mechanics, the equation of motion for an object in an inertial reference
frame is
where  is the vector sum of the physical forces acting on the object,  is the mass of
the object, and  is the acceleration of the object relative to the inertial reference
frame.
Transforming this equation to a reference frame rotating about a fixed axis through
the origin with angular velocity  having variable rotation rate, the equation takes the
form
 
where
 is the vector sum of the physical forces acting on the object
 is the angular velocity, of the rotating reference frame relative to the inertial
frame
 is the velocity relative to the rotating reference frame
 is the position vector of the object relative to the rotating reference frame
 is the acceleration relative to the rotating reference frame
The fictitious forces as they are perceived in the rotating frame
act as additional forces that contribute to the apparent
acceleration just like the real external forces.[25][26] The fictitious
force terms of the equation are, reading from left to right: [27]
 Euler force 
 Coriolis force 
 centrifugal force 
Notice the Euler and centrifugal forces depend on the position
vector  of the object, while the Coriolis force depends on the
object's velocity  as measured in the rotating reference frame.
As expected, for a non-rotating inertial frame of reference  the
Coriolis force and all other fictitious forces disappear. [28] The
forces also disappear for zero mass .
As the Coriolis force is proportional to a cross product of two
vectors, it is perpendicular to both vectors, in this case the
object's velocity and the frame's rotation vector. It therefore
follows that:

 if the velocity is parallel to the rotation axis, the

Coriolis force is zero. For example, on Earth, this
situation occurs for a body on the equator moving
north or south relative to the Earth's surface.
 if the velocity is straight inward to the axis, the
Coriolis force is in the direction of local rotation. For
 example, on Earth, this situation occurs for a body
on the equator falling downward, as in the Dechales
illustration above, where the falling ball travels
further to the east than does the tower.
 if the velocity is straight outward from the axis, the
Coriolis force is against the direction of local
rotation. In the tower example, a ball launched
upward would move toward the west.
 if the velocity is in the direction of rotation, the
Coriolis force is outward from the axis. For example,
on Earth, this situation occurs for a body on the
equator moving east relative to Earth's surface. It
would move upward as seen by an observer on the
surface. This effect (see Eötvös effect below) was
discussed by Galileo Galilei in 1632 and by Riccioli
in 1651.[29]
 if the velocity is against the direction of rotation, the
Coriolis force is inward to the axis. For example, on
Earth, this situation occurs for a body on the equator
moving west, which would deflect downward as
seen by an observer.

Length scales and the Rossby number[edit]

Further information: Rossby number
The time, space, and velocity scales are important in
determining the importance of the Coriolis force. Whether
rotation is important in a system can be determined by
its Rossby number, which is the ratio of the velocity, U, of a
system to the product of the Coriolis parameter,, and the
length scale, L, of the motion:
The Rossby number is the ratio of inertial to Coriolis
forces. A small Rossby number indicates a system is
strongly affected by Coriolis forces, and a large Rossby
number indicates a system in which inertial forces
dominate. For example, in tornadoes, the Rossby number
is large, in low-pressure systems it is low, and in oceanic
systems it is around 1. As a result, in tornadoes the
Coriolis force is negligible, and balance is between
pressure and centrifugal forces. In low-pressure systems,
centrifugal force is negligible and balance is between
Coriolis and pressure forces. In the oceans all three forces
are comparable.[30]
An atmospheric system moving at U = 10 m/s (22 mph)
occupying a spatial distance of L = 1,000 km (621 mi), has
a Rossby number of approximately 0.1.
A baseball pitcher may throw the ball at U = 45 m/s
(100 mph) for a distance of L = 18.3 m (60 ft). The Rossby
number in this case would be 32,000.
Baseball players don't care about
which hemisphere they're playing in. However, an
unguided missile obeys exactly the same physics as a
baseball, but can travel far enough and be in the air long
enough to experience the effect of Coriolis force. Long-
range shells in the Northern Hemisphere landed close to,
but to the right of, where they were aimed until this was
noted. (Those fired in the Southern Hemisphere landed to
the left.) In fact, it was this effect that first got the attention
of Coriolis himself.[31][32][33]

Simple cases[edit]
Tossed ball on a rotating carousel[edit]

A carousel is rotating counter-clockwise. Left panel: a ball is tossed by

a thrower at 12:00 o'clock and travels in a straight line to the center of
the carousel. While it travels, the thrower circles in a counter-clockwise
direction. Right panel: The ball's motion as seen by the thrower, who
now remains at 12:00 o'clock, because there is no rotation from their
viewpoint.

The figure illustrates a ball tossed from 12:00 o'clock

toward the center of a counter-clockwise rotating carousel.
On the left, the ball is seen by a stationary observer above
the carousel, and the ball travels in a straight line to the
center, while the ball-thrower rotates counter-clockwise
with the carousel. On the right, the ball is seen by an
observer rotating with the carousel, so the ball-thrower
appears to stay at 12:00 o'clock. The figure shows how the
trajectory of the ball as seen by the rotating observer can
be constructed.
On the left, two arrows locate the ball relative to the ball-
thrower. One of these arrows is from the thrower to the
center of the carousel (providing the ball-thrower's line of
sight), and the other points from the center of the carousel
to the ball. (This arrow gets shorter as the ball approaches
the center.) A shifted version of the two arrows is shown
dotted.
On the right is shown this same dotted pair of arrows, but
now the pair are rigidly rotated so the arrow corresponding
to the line of sight of the ball-thrower toward the center of
the carousel is aligned with 12:00 o'clock. The other arrow
of the pair locates the ball relative to the center of the
carousel, providing the position of the ball as seen by the
rotating observer. By following this procedure for several
positions, the trajectory in the rotating frame of reference is
established as shown by the curved path in the right-hand
panel.
The ball travels in the air, and there is no net force upon it.
To the stationary observer, the ball follows a straight-line
path, so there is no problem squaring this trajectory with
zero net force. However, the rotating observer sees
a curved path. Kinematics insists that a force (pushing to
the right of the instantaneous direction of travel for
a counter-clockwise rotation) must be present to cause this
curvature, so the rotating observer is forced to invoke a
combination of centrifugal and Coriolis forces to provide
the net force required to cause the curved trajectory.