Altitude Climb
Scroll to climb — feel the altitude, the dropping pressure and the thinning air.
Sea level
Sea level. Air pressure here is 1 atmosphere (1,013 hPa). From here, pressure falls off exponentially the higher you climb.
1 atm · 1,013 hPa
Burj Khalifa
At 828 m, the Burj Khalifa is the tallest building on Earth. The air pressure at its tip is already about 10% lower than at the ground.
0.894 atm · 906 hPa
Altitude sickness sets in
Around 2,500 m many people start to feel altitude sickness as the thinner air delivers less oxygen to the body.
0.713 atm · 723 hPa
Mont Blanc
Western Europe's highest peak at 4,810 m. Air pressure here is roughly half of sea level — every breath holds far less oxygen.
0.522 atm · 529 hPa
Kilimanjaro
Africa's tallest mountain, 5,895 m. Climbers must acclimatise slowly to cope with less than half the sea-level oxygen.
0.451 atm · 457 hPa
Summit of Everest
At 8,849 m, Earth's highest point. Pressure is only about 0.3 atm — the "death zone", where the body slowly fails without bottled oxygen.
0.302 atm · 306 hPa
Airliner cruising altitude
Jets cruise near 10,000 m where the outside air is about −50 °C and pressure is a quarter of sea level. Cabins are pressurised to stay breathable.
0.259 atm · 262 hPa
Armstrong limit
Around 18,000–19,000 m, pressure is so low that water boils at body temperature — exposed body fluids would literally bubble away.
0.088 atm · 89 hPa
Stratosphere jump
In 2012 Felix Baumgartner leapt from a balloon near 39,000 m. Up here pressure is under 1% of sea level — almost space.
0.00514 atm · 5.21 hPa
Top of the stratosphere
Near 48 km lies the stratopause, the top of the ozone-warmed stratosphere. Pressure is about a thousandth of sea level.
0.00152 atm · 1.54 hPa
Kármán line
At 100 km the Kármán line marks the conventional boundary of space. The air is so thin that wings no longer work — only orbital speed keeps you up.
0.0000014 atm · 0.0014 hPa
International Space Station
The ISS orbits at about 408 km, circling Earth every ~90 minutes at 28,000 km/h. There is still a trace of atmosphere, slowly dragging it down.
0 atm · 0 hPa
Geostationary orbit
At 35,786 km a satellite orbits exactly once per day, so it hovers over the same spot on Earth — home to TV and weather satellites.
0 atm · 0 hPa
You climbed all the way to geostationary orbit.
Every scroll takes you higher. Air pressure falls roughly by half every 5.5 km, so it drops exponentially with height — at Everest's summit it is already about a third of sea level, and beyond the Kármán line (100 km) it is essentially vacuum. Keep climbing all the way to geostationary orbit.
Sources: U.S. Standard Atmosphere 1976, NASA and NOAA atmosphere references, and individual altitude records.
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