Wind called large-scale flows of atmospheric gases, moving in one direction, usually with the same speed.In meteorology, winds species primarily classified according to the direction of movement, speed, scale, the forces causing them, the regional origin and the impact on the environment.These air currents play a very significant role in the life of mankind, as for many centuries and millennia served as a source of clean energy (sailing fleet, balloons, windmills, etc.).
Types winds also vary in duration.For short streams for up to several seconds with high speed, called impulses, and even more severe and prolonged - squalls.Long winds may vary depending on the strength, direction, scale and other parameters that distinguish breeze (coastal wind), storm, storms, hurricanes, typhoons and other.
All kinds of winds have their purely individual characteristics by which they are identified and meteorologists.For example, a feature of the breeze is changing direction twice a day.The winds are not only short-term, they may be seasonal, i.e. show stability for several months.These atmospheric phenomena are the monsoons.And the trade winds generally have a constant and stable.
Almost all kinds of winds are an important and integral part of the ecosystem of the planet, a key factor in its relief-geologic evolution.They take an active part in the processes of soil formation, cause erosion of rocks, which significantly changes the shape of the planet's surface.Air currents also carry the seeds of various plants, thus contributing to wider dissemination.
Wind, being one of the most powerful elements of our planet, has had an enormous impact on all aspects of human civilization.Many nations of the world winds were cult or divine personages of mythology and epics, the main inspiration of poets and writers.Even in ancient times, when the manifestations of this element depended too much in people's lives, he invented the pointer direction of the wind - the wind vane, a modern version of which is called an anemometer.
Often these atmospheric phenomena predetermined historical events, expands the range of trade relations and cultural exchange between the ancient nations.They were the driving forces of the various mechanisms and inexhaustible source of energy.Air flows allowed the first man to climb into the sky, without the invention of the parachute would not make sense.By virtue of its influence the winds are comparable only with the energy of the sun and the water element.
But, like any natural phenomenon, the winds are not only progress and development, but also of destruction and death.They contribute to the spread of forest fires caused by their agitation in the waters lead to the destruction of a variety of hydraulic and other structures.Riot of tornadoes and tornadoes are always accompanied by not only the grand devastation and loss of life.With the influence of the climatic effects caused such dangerous natural phenomenon as sandstorms.
But the wind is not a purely terrestrial atmospheric effects.Major winds in the solar system, according to the power of a thousand times superior to their most destructive terrestrial counterparts, are fixed on the surface of the gas giants Jupiter and Saturn.In the open space as a raging version of this powerful and extremely destructive elements - the solar wind, which is a giant and deadly stream of ionized radioactive particles.It is to him we owe so phantasmagoric phenomenon as the Northern Lights.Faced with the Earth's magnetosphere near the poles, this surprisingly powerful stream of solar radiation causes it to glow.
