For example, consider you're looking at a disk shaped cloud 10 miles above that is 20 miles long from the center. If you're on Earth spinning below it at 1000mph you would be looking back at the cloud in less than 2 minutes.
So how do clouds linger above us on a fast spinning earth?
May not be a convincing question for some, but it's made me think.
It is the same principle by which stirring your coffee causes the entire contents of the cup to swirl, and not just that touched immediately by the surface of the spoon.
But what I don't see is how that works in an atmosphere which is mostly near the earth's surface. It seems like you would lose a lot of energy as you entered the stratosphere because the air density increasingly falls, there's less room for friction to cohere the atmosphere.
High clouds should be less effected which would make them appear to move much faster than low clouds.
Is there a good source somewhere on how this works that takes this into account? The stuff I've seen just assumes its own model and works backwards.
I would love to sit down, have a beer, and try to figure out how the clouds work. Not just what Wikipedia says happens, but really understanding why.
Reminds me of people who build rocket ships in their back yard or nuclear reactors in their garages.
-SE believer
I'm not a physicist but it seems to me that given entropy and the thinning of the atmosphere as elevation increases that clouds would not a) not appear to float in place and b) only move in one direction.
Low clouds would appear to float in place but high clouds would move quickly away from the spin of the earth.
Not sure how someone would go about proving this with household tools
It's reflecting sunlight right, so why does moonlight register as colder than shaded spots.
It's a real easy and fun experiment.
One guess is that the Moon is not a perfect reflector and the photon density per unit area coming off the Moon is a lot lower.
You could test this hypothesis by pointing a laser thermometer at a light bulb and a pile of dirt reflecting the light from the bulb. The Moon is basically made out of gray dirt.
It would be interesting to try the experiment on a moonless night to check the difference between open and shaded ground. If they are the same the shade doesn't likely matter (given a sufficient time from sundown).