Why Does the Wind Blow?

The Sun heats the Earth surface unevenly: land warms faster than water, equatorial regions receive more heat than poles, and dark surfaces absorb more than light ones. Warm air rises and creates an area of low pressure; cooler air flows in from surrounding high-pressure areas to fill the gap. This horizontal movement of air is what we feel as wind. The greater the pressure difference, the stronger the wind. Earth rotation (the Coriolis effect) deflects wind to the right in the Northern Hemisphere and to the left in the Southern Hemisphere, creating the large-scale wind patterns (trade winds, westerlies, polar easterlies) that drive global weather.