Vertical pressure variation

So, imagine you're standing on the ground and I put a big box on your head. The box is pretty heavy and it makes you feel squished down. That's kind of like what vertical pressure variation is.

The air around us has weight and it pushes down on everything. The air at the ground level is being pushed down the most because there's a lot of air above it. As you go higher and higher up in the air, there's less air pushing down on you because there's less air above you.

Think about when you go swimming. When you dive down to the bottom of the pool, you feel pressure in your ears because of all the water pushing down on you. That's kind of like what happens with air pressure too. As you go deeper into the water, the pressure gets stronger because there's more water above you pushing down. As you come up to the surface, the pressure gets lighter because there's less water above you pushing down.

It's the same idea with air pressure. The pressure is strongest at the ground level because there's a lot of air above it pushing down. The pressure gets lighter as you go higher up in the air because there's less air above you pushing down. This difference in pressure at different heights is called vertical pressure variation.