And why is a rapid DROP in them bad?
In: Planetary Science
There’s a long tradition of inventing a whole new pressure unit everytime anyone discovers a new field where pressure matters.
I’m addition to what everyone else has said, if you’re American you might be used to hearing about atmospheric pressure in inches of mercury (inHg). Normal is about 30 at sea level. Millibars is just a different unit to measure pressure.
1 bar is just about the normal atmospheric pressure.
1 millibar is 1/1000 of a bar
Low pressure usually means storms because higher pressure from elsewhere will flow in bringing in heat and water which will reach the center if the low pressure system and be pushed up, that water condenses, and you get rain. The faster/larger the pressure drop, the more violent the storm
Millibar is a way to measure pressure.
Air is a fluid so it behaves like a liquid in a lot of ways. If pressure drops it’s like having a hole in the water of a pool. The rest of the water will fall into that hole. So if pressure drops the storm is going to intensify as air gets less stable.
Unit of atmospheric pressure. In the US we usually use inches of mercury. It’s basically the weight of all the air above pressing down on the ground.
Low pressure systems are associated with storms. Wind moves from high to low pressure areas, so lower pressure and stronger pressure gradients = stronger winds. As the storm strengthens the pressure drops, and the winds get stronger.
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