When most people think of meteorologists, they picture the weather person on TV, telling us if it’s going to rain. But meteorologists do more than just forecast the weather. From helping businesses plan for extreme weather to guiding climate research, meteorologists are involved in fields you might not expect. They’re in aviation, agriculture, energy, and even in the courtroom, showing how weather events impact legal cases. Many meteorologists also end up as programmers, data scientists, and data forecasters, using their skills to analyze large sets of atmospheric data and predict trends that go beyond the daily weather report. I have a BS in atmospheric science, but my career took me into continuous improvement engineering, showing how meteorology can lead to many different paths.
In movies, in telescopes, through lenses, and through our eyes, the earth appears to be a round shape.
What shape is Earth?
Think of Earth as an asteroid (shaped like a potato). Earth is a huge, wondrous planet with gravity that pulls smaller objects towards it. Any physical object has gravity, even humans, but we don’t feel that force. Earth’s tilt and constant rotation, along with its gravity, keep water — like our oceans, rivers, and even water vapor in the air (such as clouds, fog, and invisible droplets known as humidity) — pulled toward it. Earth can seem round like a circle, due to all the gravity keeping the oceans and water together, while Earth is constantly spinning.
The technical name of Earth’s shape is called an “Oblate Spheroid.”
Let’s break it down.
Oblate means flattened at the poles, which also means it is wider at the equator.
A spheroid is like a planet’s close cousin. It’s mostly a sphere, but a bit squished/stretched, depending on how it was formed.
Now, imagine a potato shaped like an oblate spheroid, then we can imagine it like the European Space Agency (ESA) did for us using ESA’s GOCE satellite, which gathered enough data to map Earth’s gravity:
Image credit: ESA — Earth’s gravity revealed in unprecedented detail
Aurthor’s Note:
Earth isn’t flat or a perfect sphere. Shaped by spinning, it’s flattened at the poles and stretched at the equator. Thanks to ESA’s GOCE satellite, we know Earth’s shape and gravity work together in balance. I found this especially interesting while studying for my bachelor’s in atmospheric sciences at UNCA.