Down here in Georgia we love complaining about our bipolar weather. However, we need to give the weather a break, because he is under a lot of pressure! Atmospheric pressure that is. The pressure in our atmosphere moves in large circular systems, and it is these systems which control our daily forecast. During high pressure systems, we experience sunny, clear days. Low pressure systems are accompanied by clouds and precipitation. A way to measure the amount of pressure in the atmosphere is with a barometer. In this lab, we created a makeshift barometer out of a glass bowl, a balloon, a ruler, and a straw. When the pressure around the barometer changed, the balloon would either expand or contract, and we could measure the change using the straw and the ruler. Our barometer measured the pressure in centimeters, but actual ones use millimeters of Mercury (mm HG). The typical atmospheric pressure is 760 mm Hg or 1 atmosphere (Atm). The data shown below (provided by Dr. Rood) shows a few variations that we may possibly see in our atmosphere.
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