The world-scale system of pressure and winds that transports heat from tropical to polar latitudes, thus maintaining the present patterns of world temperatures. This global circulation, influenced by the Coriolis force, is driven by intense differences in insolation between the tropics and the poles. Air moves vertically along the meridians and horizontally with the wind systems, both at ground level and in the upper atmosphere. See B. Haurwitz (2007). See Yu (2000) Math. Comput. Simul. 52, 5–6 for a general circulation model.

General circulation of the atmosphere

Source: Managing Water for Peace in the Middle East