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The pressure gradient force is not actually a 'force' but the acceleration of air due to pressure difference (a force per unit mass). It is usually responsible for accelerating a parcel of air
AIR

Air is the part of Earth's atmosphere that humans breath and as such Air .Air may also refer to:...
 from a high atmospheric pressure
Atmospheric pressure

Atmospheric pressure is sometimes defined as the force per unit area exerted against a surface by the weight of air above that surface at any given point in the Earth's atmosphere....
 region to a low pressure region, resulting in wind
WIND

The Global Geospace Science WIND satellite is a NASA science spacecraft launched at 04:31:00 EST on November 1, 1994 from launch pad 17B at Cape Canaveral Air Force Station in Merritt_Island%2C_Florida, Florida aboard a McDonnell Douglas Delta II 7925-10 rocket....
. In meteorology, pressure gradient force refers to the horizontal movement of air according to the equation:

The term is equal to the acceleration because this is an expression of Newton's law .






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The pressure gradient force is not actually a 'force' but the acceleration of air due to pressure difference (a force per unit mass). It is usually responsible for accelerating a parcel of air
AIR

Air is the part of Earth's atmosphere that humans breath and as such Air .Air may also refer to:...
 from a high atmospheric pressure
Atmospheric pressure

Atmospheric pressure is sometimes defined as the force per unit area exerted against a surface by the weight of air above that surface at any given point in the Earth's atmosphere....
 region to a low pressure region, resulting in wind
WIND

The Global Geospace Science WIND satellite is a NASA science spacecraft launched at 04:31:00 EST on November 1, 1994 from launch pad 17B at Cape Canaveral Air Force Station in Merritt_Island%2C_Florida, Florida aboard a McDonnell Douglas Delta II 7925-10 rocket....
. In meteorology, pressure gradient force refers to the horizontal movement of air according to the equation:

The term is equal to the acceleration because this is an expression of Newton's law . is the component of the pressure gradient along the x-axis. is the mass density and shows that as the mass density increases, the acceleration due to the pressure gradient becomes smaller.

The pressure gradient force acts at right angles to isobar
Isobar

Isobar may refer to:* a contour line of equal or constant pressure in meteorology* two nuclides with the same mass number in nuclear physics* a heat pipe...
s in the direction from high to low pressure. The greater the pressure difference over a given horizontal distance, the greater the force and hence the stronger the wind.

The pressure gradient force, however, is not the only force that acts on a moving parcel of air — if it were, then low and high pressure regions would eventually disappear. Other forces acting on a horizontally moving parcel of air include; surface friction
Friction

File:Friction alt.svgFriction is the force resisting the relative lateral motion of solid surfaces, fluid layers, or material elements in contact....
, coriolis force, centrifugal force. In large-scale atmospheric flows, the coriolis force generally balances the pressure gradient force, producing winds blowing largely along the isobars; however, near the surface the friction term is also important, generally giving a resulting net wind direction diagonal to the isobars (with a component blowing towards the low pressure center).