# Help the Student Pilot

**URL:** https://boards.straightdope.com/t/help-the-student-pilot/556884
**Category:** Factual Questions
**Created:** [October 12, 2010, 2:24pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/help-the-student-pilot/556884 "2010-10-12T14:24:26Z")
**Posts on this page:** 1
**Showing post:** 10

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### Author: ![ElvisL1ves](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/e/5daacb/32.png) [@ElvisL1ves](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/ElvisL1ves)
#### Post date: [October 12, 2010, 8:20pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/help-the-student-pilot/556884/10 "2010-10-12T20:20:12Z")

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> [@Chessic\_Sense](#):
>
> Weather - On a hot day, the pressure rises. This seems counter-intuitive to me, as I’d expect the air to expand in volume, not pressure. But when you’ve got gas in a container and heat it up, pressure (not volume) increases. Is the atmosphere really just one big container?

The lower atmosphere essentially is, yes - air pressure is just the total weight of all the air above you. If lower layers heat up but upper ones don’t, the weight of the upper layers, resting on the lower ones, will contain them and cause their pressure to rise.

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