Pressure gradient the air to make it move as wind. Note that the pressure gradient force points from high towards low pressure zones, it is thus oriented in the opposite direction from the pressure gradient itself. Sound waves and shock waves are events that can induce very large pressure gradients, but these are often transitory disturbances. In acoustics the pressure gradient is proportional to the sound particle acceleration according to Euler's equation. Pressure gradient In atmospheric science (meteorology, climatology and related fields), the pressure gradient (typically of air, more generally of any fluid) is a physical quantity that describes in which direction
Atmospheric pressure Siberian High often attains a "sea-level pressure" above , with record highs close to . The lowest measurable "sea-level pressure" is found at the centers of tropical cyclones and tornadoes, with a record low of (see Atmospheric pressure records). "Surface pressure" is the atmospheric pressure at a location on Earth's surface (terrain and oceans). It is directly proportional to the mass of air over that location. For numerical reasons, atmospheric models such as general circulation models (GCMs) usually predict the nondimensional "logarithm of surface pressure". The average value of surface pressure on Earth is 985hPa. This is in contrast to