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The tilt of our planet causes the globe to heat up at different rates. Why do we have a change in pressure around the planet? This has to do with temperature and the heating of the planet from the sun. We know that pressure varies greatly around our planet and the pressure difference generates wind and storms. Now that you understand the standard pressure of our atmosphere and what it means, let’s talk about how this influences weather. Now that is a lot of weight!ĭid you know more than 2,000 pounds of air is resting on our heads every day? So why aren’t we crushed by it? Thank goodness for a strong vertebrae! Our bodies exert pressure too and these forces are balanced. Multiply that value by 14.7 lbs per square inch and you get a weight of 1,374 pounds of air over that sheet of paper. Let’s calculate the approximate weight of the atmosphere over a standard piece of paper with the dimensions of 8.5” x 11”?įind the area of the piece of paper which equals 93.5 square inches.
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Take out your pencil and let’s do some quick math. What does this mean? It translates down to 14.7 lbs per square inch! Think about that. Here’s a fun fact! The average atmospheric pressure is 1013.25 mb or 29.92”Hg. There is a cool tool used to measure air pressure and it is called a barometer. The two most common metric units meteorologist use are “Inches of Mercury (Hg)” or “millibars (mb).” You may hear meteorologist refer to these units when describing the strength of a hurricane. There are many units to describe air pressure. It is the weight (force) of the Earth’s atmosphere pressing down on any object on the Earth’s surface. Next week we will learn about how pressure controls our weather patterns.įirst, let’s start off by defining air pressure. This week will focus on the relationship between temperature and pressure. This lesson will be broken into two parts over the next two weeks. High pressure gives us sunny weather and low pressure gives us stormy weather. Pressure means everything when it comes to forecasting weather and learning about global patterns. Pressure: How temperature differences affect pressure