Pascal (unit) dB SPL, or 20 µPa. The airtightness of buildings is measured at 50 Pa. The units of atmospheric pressure commonly used in meteorology were formerly the bar, which was close to the average air pressure on Earth, and the millibar. Since the introduction of SI units, meteorologists generally measure pressures in hectopascals (hPa) unit, equal to 100 pascals or 1 millibar. Exceptions include Canada, which use kilopascals (kPa). In many other fields of science, the SI is preferred, which means Pa with a prefix (in multiples of 1000) is preferred. Many countries also use the millibars. In practically all other
International System of Units and derived units may be used to express other derived units. For example, the SI unit of force is the newton (N), the SI unit of pressure is the pascal (Pa)—and the pascal can be defined as one newton per square metre (N/m). Prefixes are added to unit names to produce multiples and sub-multiples of the original unit. All of these are integer powers of ten, and above a hundred or below a hundredth all are integer powers of a thousand. For example, "kilo-" denotes a multiple of a thousand and "milli-" denotes a multiple of a thousandth, so there