Pressure-gradient force

The Gradientkraft, even pressure gradient force, the geophysical cause of the wind as a compensating flow of air between a high and a low pressure area.

Due to a pressure gradient (gradient means as much as gradient ), ie a difference in air pressure between the high and low pressure acts on the air along the pressure gradient force. This force is proportional to the pressure difference and not the absolute value of the pressure itself As a result, compensation flows form ( Winds), which are always directed from the high to the low pressure area, so the location of the higher to the place of the lower air pressure. While the air thus flows together in the low pressure area ( it converges ), it flows in the high pressure area apart ( diverges ). The results from the Gradientkraft wind is called Euler wind.

Together with other influences playing the Gradientkraft also in the training of geostrophic, zyklostrophischen and Gradientwinden a role. In addition to Gradientkraft the air masses are deflected in their motion by the Coriolis force. In the northern hemisphere, the Coriolis force acts rechtsablenkend, so that the air is always right (clockwise - so in a mathematically negative sense ) from the high " unscrewing " and left (counter -clockwise - that is in the mathematically positive sense) in the deep " into turns ". In the southern hemisphere the Coriolis force acts linksablenkend and the air correspondingly rotated differently around the pressure areas. Additional factors influencing the development of real winds here are also bottom friction and topography -related influences.