At +20 C, you may have 15 grams of water vapor in a kilogram of air (at
average sea level pressure).
--- Atmospheric mass and composition: approx. 510 trillion m ^ 2 (surface area) * 0.1013 MPa (surface pressure) / 9.81 m / s ^ 2 = 5.266 E18 kg = 5.266 million Gt Hartmann, «Global Physical Climatology», p. 8 gives 5.136 million Gt (the difference could be due to actual average surface pressure being lower than
average sea level pressure; counteracting that, gravity decreases with height (not much over most of the mass of the atmosphere) and I think global average g may be less than 9.81 (maybe 9.80?)
Average sea level pressure is 29.92 inches (1013.23 mb), making this record pressure 7 % higher than normal, which means there was 7 % more atmospheric mass above that point than normal.
These graphs show sea level pressure anomalies or differences from
average sea level pressure in the Northern Hemisphere for April, May, June, and July 2016.
Not exact matches
(One bar is slightly less than the
average atmospheric
pressure at
sea level.)
At a
pressure of circa 2.5 Giga - Pascal (GPa), more than 25,000 times the
average pressure at
sea level, and a temperature of 200 degrees Celsius, the super-hydrated phase was observed.
Reflecting the generally stormy pattern through the month,
sea level pressures were well below
average (as much as 10 hPa) over the central and eastern Arctic Ocean.
Arbetter, 4.7, Statistical A statistical model using regional observations of
sea ice area and global NCEP air temperature,
sea level pressure, and freezing degree day estimates continues the trend of projecting below -
average summer
sea ice conditions for the Arctic.
Since ENSO is a coupled ocean - atmosphere process, I have presented its impact on and the inter-relationships between numerous variables, including
sea surface temperature,
sea level, ocean currents, ocean heat content, depth -
averaged temperature, warm water volume,
sea level pressure, cloud amount, precipitation, the strength and direction of the trade winds, etc..
The figure below (Figure 5 a-c) provided by Cecilia Bitz, and similar plots provided by Oleg M. Pokrovsky and the NIC Group, shows the
sea level pressure field centered over the Northern Hemisphere for July 2008, July 2007, and for July
average conditions (climatology).
Though there can be significant differences in regional surface impacts between one SSW event and another, the typical pattern includes changes in
sea level pressure resembling the negative phase of the North Atlantic Oscillation (NAO) / Arctic Oscillation (AO), (representing a southward shift in the Atlantic storm track), wetter than
average conditions for much of Europe, cold air outbreaks throughout the mid-latitudes, and warmer than
average conditions in eastern Canada and subtropical Asia (see figure below, left panel).
The Arctic had a weak Dipole
Sea Level Pressure (SLP) with a low on the Eurasian Side and a high pressure region from north of the Bering Strait across northern Canada; the SLP pattern is typical of the long term average (1981
Pressure (SLP) with a low on the Eurasian Side and a high
pressure region from north of the Bering Strait across northern Canada; the SLP pattern is typical of the long term average (1981
pressure region from north of the Bering Strait across northern Canada; the SLP pattern is typical of the long term
average (1981 - 2010).
(Top) Time series of the NPI (
sea level pressure during December through March
averaged over the North Pacific, 30 ° N to 65 ° N, 160 ° E to 140 ° W) from 1900 to 2005 expressed as normalised departures from the long - term mean (each tick mark on the ordinate represents two standard deviations, or 5.5 hPa).
These metrics emphasise fields between 30S and 30N including 2 m air temperature (Willmott and Matsuura 2000), vertically
averaged air temperature (ERA40, Uppala et al. 2005), latent heat fluxes of the ocean (Yu et al. 2008), zonal winds at 300 mb (ERA40, Uppala et al. 2005), longwave and shortwave cloud forcing (CERES2, Loeb et al. 2009), precipitation over land and ocean (GPCP, Adler et al. 2003),
sea level pressure (ERA40, Uppala et al. 2005), vertically
averaged relative humidity (ERA40, Uppala et al. 2005).
In response to increasing concentrations of greenhouse gases and tropospheric sulfate aerosols, the multimodel
average exhibits a positive annular trend in both hemispheres, with decreasing
sea level pressure (SLP) over the pole and a compensating increase in midlatitudes.
Atmospheric
pressure at
sea level rises and falls to some degree as horizontal
pressure ridges sweep along but the
average pressure remains the same at 1 bar.
Since May,
sea -
level pressure anomalies over northern Australia have been persistently high, while
pressure anomalies over the tropical eastern Pacific have been mostly lower than
average.
But maps of
sea level pressure can also be
averaged over several months or years, to show the
average circulation patterns in the atmosphere.
Variability in
sea level pressure decreases on
average in the Southern Hemisphere, while in the Northern Hemisphere there are regional differences.»
Arctic atmospheric variability during the industrial era (1875 — 2000) is assessed using spatially
averaged surface air temperature (SAT) and
sea level pressure (SLP) records.
This plot shows Arctic
sea level pressure difference from
average for September 2016.
Madden, R. A. Estimates of the natural variability of time -
averaged sea -
level pressure.