High-pressure area High-pressure area A high-pressure area, high or anticyclone is a region where the atmospheric pressure at the surface of the planet is greater than its surrounding environment. Winds within high-pressure areas flow outward from the higher pressure areas near their centers towards the lower pressure areas further from their centers. Gravity adds to the forces causing this general movement, because the higher pressure compresses the column of air near the center of the area into greater density – and so greater weight compared to lower pressure, lower density, and lower weight of the air outside the center. However, because the
High pressure High pressure In science and engineering the study of high pressure examines its effects on materials and the design and construction of devices, such as a diamond anvil cell, which can create high pressure. By "high pressure" is usually meant pressures of thousands (kilobars) or millions (megabars) of times atmospheric pressure (about 1 bar or 100,000 Pa). Percy Williams Bridgman received a Nobel Prize in 1946 for advancing this area of physics by several magnitudes of pressure (400 MPa to 40,000 MPa). The list of founding fathers of this field includes also the names of Harry George Drickamer, Tracy Hall,