Coriolis deflection of a vertical projectile
ID: coriolis-deflection-of-a-vertical-projectile
At colatitude , ignore terms quadratic in Earth angular speed and use uniform vertical gravity. A vertically launched particle has zeroth-order height . Its eastward Coriolis acceleration is , so its horizontal velocity is . Integrating over the flight time gives the westward displacement displayed above. Descent reverses the horizontal acceleration but does not cancel the accumulated displacement.
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