On Mon, 07 Jul 2003 08:45:35 -0500, David Ball
wrote:

On Mon, 07 Jul 2003 07:23:38 GMT, Gene Nygaard
wrote:

On Sun, 06 Jul 2003 20:06:36 -0500, David Ball
wrote:

On Sun, 06 Jul 2003 14:05:47 GMT, Gene Nygaard
wrote:


It is broke. That's the only reason hectopascals exist in the first
place, is the pressure to get rid of those obsolete millibars.

LOL. Who says millibars are obsolete?

CGPM. ISO. NPL. NIST. Measurement Canada. WMO. Many more.

Hmmm...did you check with the meteorologists? You know, the
people who use the units?

That's what the WMO I referred to is. They have recognized the need
to get rid of millibars; they just haven't been smart enough to to it
right. A branch of Environment Canada is also the meteorological
organization using kilopascals.

No. Those are bureaucrats. I'm talking about the people who
actually do the work.


Feel free to jump in with any standards from any international or
national or professional meteorological organization advocating the
use of the millibar. Prove to us your claim that there is nothing
wrong with millibars. But also let us know the ones you run across
that indicate there is indeed something wrong with the continued use
of millibars.

LOL. Feel free to jump in any time you want to make sense. I
don't have to prove anything.

No, you won't say any more about this subject, because you know what
the answer is. Even the meteorological standards organizations know
that there is something wrong with millibars.

Hmmm...so scientists should only use words that can be
understood by the public? That's an interesting idea.

No. It's more like you should be using the same units real scientists
use. And so should the general public, many of whom are involved in
some field of science anyway.

I do. They're called millibars. I can go into a room full of
meteorologists anywhere in the world and use those units and people
will know what I'm talking about, and that, after all, is the goal:
communication.



Technically, millibars are SI. They're called hectopascals.

No, millibars are not SI, and never will be. One of the hallmark
qualities of the SI is that it is a "coherent" system of units. Bars
are not coherent with this system. The coherent derived units are
some unitary combination of the base units in that system; the bar is
100000 times the combination of base units in SI.

No, the pound is not coherent. Neither is the mile. The beauty
of SI is that is uses multiples of 10. Other units do not. Are you
suggesting that all aviation forecasters stop using knots? Should we

Certainly.

Check the METAR standards. The standard calls for wind speeds in
meters per second. Some countries such as the U.S. and Canada do use
knots, but they deviate from the international standards in many other
ways as well. About the only one they follow is the use of degrees
Celsius for temperatures and dew points, something where the U.S. and
Canada used different units in the old SA format (with neither of them
identifying the units used). See more on this at
http://ourworld.compuserve.com/homep...rd/usmetar.htm

Other countries (I don't know which ones) deviate from the standard by
using kilometers per hour for this purpose. We know this because a
unit identifier is specified for this purpose, something that wouldn't
be done if nobody used them.

So yes, indeed, follow the standard and use meters per second, as some
countries do.