An Explication of the Coriolis Effect

Abstract

Inertia circle motion is a familiar concept demonstrating the behavior of a horizontally moving particle on the rotating earth in response to the Coriolis force. Three dynamical principles valid in nonrotating space are used to explain the principal properties of this motion without the need for solving differential equations. The motion is an oscillation about a central latitude selected by the particle's angular momentum, in which the restoring force is set by the relative magnitudes of the poleward attraction of gravity and the equatorward attraction of the centrifugal force as the particle oscillates about the central latitude.