How much does the entire atmosphere weigh?

Question

How much does the entire atmosphere weigh?

c this website: http://www.weather.com/common/onlinepoll/results/schoolday.html?schoolday_poll112

Answer 1

Here's a quick estimate:
One atmosphere of pressure = 14.7 psi
Surface area of the earth = 197,000,000 sq.mi. (Britannica)
1 sq mi = 4,014,489,600 sq.in.
14.7 x 197 mln x 4 bln = 1.16 x 10^19 pounds

Or roughly 6 million billion tons.

Answer 2

From wikipedia:

The average mass of the atmosphere is about 5,000 trillion metric tons. According to the National Center for Atmospheric Research, "The total mean mass of the atmosphere is 5.1480×10^18 kg with an annual range due to water vapor of 1.2 or 1.5×10^15 kg depending on whether surface pressure or water vapor data are used; somewhat smaller than the previous estimate. The mean mass of water vapor is estimated as 1.27×10^16 kg and the dry air mass as 5.1352 ±0.0003×10^18 kg."

Answer 3

it weighs one atmosphere.