CORIOLIS PARAMETER

A important quantity in theoretical meteorology because it plays a major part in describing (mathematically) how air moves on our spinning planet under the influence of a pressure gradient. It is usually denoted as 'f', and defined as twice the product of the angular velocity of the earth and the sine of a particular latitude. The angular velocity of our spinning earth is (for practical purposes) constant, therefore the important variable is latitude: from the definition, f varies from a maximum at the poles (sine 90deg=1) to zero at the equator (sine 0deg=0). [ see also Absolute Vorticity ]