Not a dumb question. However there is clearly enough stirring or molecular interaction going on to ensure that the atmosphere remains mixed as you acurately observed. I would say that the important values for the molecules concerned are the molecular weight and the kinetic diameter (the effective size of the molecule when considering collisions with other molecules). For N2 CO2 and O2 in that order the atomic weights are 28, 44 and 32. and kinetic diameters are 364, 330 and 346. All within a factor of 2 by weight and much closer than that in diameter. At ground level the temperature is highest so the average kinetic velocity of the molecules will be highest too. This along with the fact that the density is highest would suggest that the max rate of collisions occurs at ground level and gradually tails off by height. One would expect in the upper atmosphere when density and temperature is very low layering would indeed take place. In the extreme case of helium the atmospheric kinetic interactions are such that helium can exceed the escape velocity of the earth and so leech out into space.

Well that's my take on the subject purely by thought.

regards Martin

It's because they are panicking over insignificant amounts of a trace gas

Four hundredths of one penny

Carbon dioxide is indeed heavier than air, but with the natural movement of air and ventilation it is readily dispersed.

It can become a major problem in confined spaces, look up Carsington Dam in the UK, four deaths in a inspection chamber, due to acidic water reacting with limestone producing co2.

I used to teach confined spaces and there are lots of horror stories involving co2.

Nothing to worry about in normal atmospheric conditions

IanJ

The CO2 used in fizzy drinks is a by product of other industrial processes, so banning fizzy drinks won't help. I doubt that the CO2 produced by fermenting barley, grapes etc to make booze figures large in the scheme of things. My local coal fired power station burned 16000 tons of coal per day, the average holiday flight emits the odd ton per passenger. No doubt someone will come along and explain how, but it is beyond doubt that CO2 has increased massively since we started burning fossil fuels big time, and all reputable scientists agree it causes global warming. Just because I don't understand how doesn't mean it's not true.

Hi, you may find answers here Greenhouse Effect

Regards Nick.

Don't see the relevance, sodium hydroxide has a lower molecular weight than CO2 but it's a solid at room temp.

Tungsten hexafluride has a pretty high molecular weight, but is a gas, and Radon is really heavy, although it isn't molecular, being a noble gas it is atomic

Edited By duncan webster on 10/08/2022 15:17:52

Not so much storing as trapping. The way it goes is this. All molecules have an absorbtion spectra comprising of strongly absorbing wavelengths interspersed by non absorbing bands. Visible light from the sun reaches the ground through the largely transparent atmosphere causing heating. The warm ground is re-radiated in the Infra-red back up into the sky. Greenhouse gasses are gasses that absorb in the Infra-red so increasing the amount of these gasses in the atmosphere will absorb and then re-radiate this energy back to the ground rather than let it dissipate into space. So increasing greenhouse gasses like CO2 and Methane will make the atmosphere increasingly more opaque to IR wavelengths trapping that energy on the planet and causing a global heating effect. Making the atmosphere less opaque or more transparent to IR re radiated energy will conversly reduce the net energy budget and the planet will cool to equilibrium. Thats the how.

By observation CO2 levels around 300 parts per million put the earth in a stable zone where climate is able to be regulated by plant growth and CO2 draw down by the sea and its organisms. Push the levels too high or too low and you get a major warming event or and ice age which severely disrupts the biosphere destroying the regulating factors that have kept the climate comfy for the last umpteen thousand years.

regards Marin

By what mechanism does CO2 hold onto heat energy over & above other gases in the atmosphere?

Lots of gases do it – absorb infra red electromagnetic waves. Water (vapour) and methane are the other main absorbers. The reason why they are ‘greenhouse’ gases is simple enough – when they eventually let go of that energy collected from infrared from the Earth, it is re-radiated in all directions, a large proportion of that radiation will be directed downwards, back to the Earth below.

Of course, as the Earth’s atmosphere warms it will hold more water vapour, but it is the methane and carbon dioxide released by the human population (burning fossil fuels and farming more herbivores, in particular). It is the three-fold increase in CO2 that is considered the number one problem gas.

By the way some on here mix up atomic masses and molecular masses.

Water is an anomalous compound – it is a liquid at our normal temperatures because of hydrogen bonding. Its other useful characteristic is the fact that its density is at a minimum of 4 degrees Celsius while it freezes at 0 Celsius. If ice formed at the bottom of water courses, the rammifications for life on the planet would have been much different.

Raised CO2 levels and rising temperatures will not destroy the planet. Historically the atmosphere was very different. The evolution of photosynthetic organisms resulted in a huge rise in the oxygen content of the atmosphere. As a result those organisms had to protect themselves from the toxic oxygen. They either evolved to survive in an oxic atmosphere, occupied anoxic niches or died out. Life and the planet will survive, but many organisms will die out.
It really annoys me everytime I hear / see someone say that raising CO2 levels will destroy the planet – I am amused by their lack of understanding.

That small quantities often make a big difference shouldn't be a surprise:

• Pure water is an electrical insulator yet adding a single crystal of Common Salt turns a ton of water into a conductor.
• Iron is too soft and malleable to be useful. Adding 0.05% of carbon turns Iron into mild-steel. And between 0.6 and 1.4% carbon creates a range of tool steels with very different properties.
• Vitamins
• Botulin Toxin is about 40 million times more deadly than Hydrogen Cyanide. If 100 people are each given an 80 nanogram dose, 50 of them will die.
• One sperm…

Ady is guilty of applying "common sense" to the wrong problem. It's true that diluting nasty things often renders them harmless but unfortunately not true of Carbon Dioxide in the atmosphere. Not a matter of conjecture, opinion, or belief; it's easy to measure the green-house effect of gases in a laboratory.

The scientific theory behind global warming is backed by plenty of evidence that's been getting stronger for at least thirty years. If someone has an alternative, I'd like to see the data and reasoning. Wishful thinking, distrust, ignorance and conspiracy theories are poor ways of tackling a technical problem.

Dave

Interesting you chose 30 years of scientific support Dave. Just after the last panic of a coming ice age as enthusiastically supported by climate experts writing to Presidents, was falling out of favour.

I doubt if there ever was a settled climate. Neither do I doubt that man is having an impact .

Dismissal of inconvenient facts such as no climate model having predicted the last 30 years climate accurately ( many wrong by orders of magnitude) and the historical evidence of a medieval warming period (sans CO2). Sidelining the dust bowl years in America and ignoring the discovery of varieties of oats ,now only growable in a mediterranean climate, in neolithic Scara Brae Orkney, all give me cause to doubt the current orthodoxy . The settled orthodoxy of the geocentric model started with Eudoxus and through Ptolemy was accepted for 1500 years.Famously sceptics or "deniers" such as Copernicus came unstuck for promoting alternative views. Disgracefully, Eugenics was accepted by a large part of the scientific community in the 1920s as evidenced.

So "settled science" despite its high self regard has feet of clay and I would be much more receptive to the arguments if the anomalies were explained rather than dismissed.