Simple Explanation
Surface friction forces the surface wind to slow and turn near the surface of the Earth, blowing directly towards the low pressure, when compared to the winds in the nearly frictionless flow well above the Earth's surface. This layer, where surface friction slows the wind and changes the wind direction, is known as the planetary boundary layer. Daytime solar heating due to insolation thickens the boundary layer as winds at the surface become increasingly mixed with winds aloft. Radiative cooling overnight decouples the winds at the surface from the winds above the boundary layer, increasing vertical wind shear near the surface, also known as wind gradient.
Read more about this topic: Wind Gradient
Famous quotes containing the words simple and/or explanation:
“Chaucer sawed life in half and out tumbled hundreds of unpremeditated lives, because he didn’t have the cast-iron grid of a priori coherence that makes reading Goethe, Shakespeare, or Dante an exercise in searching for signs of life among the conventions, compulsions, self-justifications, proofs, wise saws, simple but powerful messages, and poetry.”
—Marvin Mudrick (1921–1986)
“Auden, MacNeice, Day Lewis, I have read them all,
Hoping against hope to hear the authentic call . . .
And know the explanation I must pass is this
MYou cannot light a match on a crumbling wall.”
—Hugh MacDiarmid (1892–1978)