Re: SI &c.

[Robert A Cohen <bbq@ESU.EDU>]

On Sun, 29 Aug 1999, Daniel Schroeder wrote:

> Leigh:  What unit of (barometric) pressure is used in weather reports
> up there?  (My guess is bars or millibars, like my bicycle tire gauge,
> but official SI would require pascals or kilopascals.)

In the international meteorological meetings I've attended, the non-US
scientists have typically used hPa for their maps so as to not confuse
those who are familiar with mb (1 mb = 1 hPa).  According to their
publishing guidelines (1993), the American Meteorological Society prefers
the kPa as the unit of atmospheric pressure although they accept the mb as
long as the "SI guidelines continue to permit use of the bar".  They also
accept the use of atm for papers dealing with applied meteorology and
engineering.  They say that SI guidelines permit such use "for a limited
time".

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| Robert Cohen               Department of Physics       |
|                            East Stroudsburg University |
| bbq@esu.edu                East Stroudsburg, PA  18301 |
| http://www.esu.edu/~bbq/   (570) 422-3428              |
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