as co2 is so much heavier than air how come it can cause a green house layer?

Question

are the airlines not telling us something about the supposed 2% of greenhouse impact etc being caused by airliners dumping co2 directly into the ionosphere (whatever)?

Answer 1

The atmosphere is a mixture of different gases, and CO2 is one of the heaviest, but it does not form layers.

Up to a height of about 100 km, the atmosphere is called the "homosphere" (Greek homos = same) because it is a fairly uniform mixture - the different gases still occur in almost the same proportions at all heights. The "ozone layer" is from about 15 km to 35 km, but it is a false name because ozone is already a very scarce gas, and the extra proportion of it at these heights is very slight.

Above 100 km, comes the "heterosphere" (Greek heteros = different) where the lighter gases predominate the higher you go.

The greenhouse effect is distributed throughout the homosphere, and depends on its proportion of CO2 and of CH4 (methane).

Answer 2

Even though CO2 is heavier than air, but as it's heated by the sun it becomes lighter and ascends, which is normally part of the cycle of air shifting to the upper atmosphere cooling, the coming back down. BUT, when the CO2 is excessive it forms a barrier in the upper atmosphere creating a "lid" which then disallows the normal cycle of the air ascention and descention. This makes the air warmed by the sun to be trapped within the earth's atmosphere and in essence creating a "bubble" effect on earth raising the temperatures by minute amounts which slowly begin to effect the delicate balance of earth's echo systems.

Answer 3

Gases are mixed by thermal energy causing the molecules to move around. So the CO2 is mixed all through the air.

Airplanes are one minor cause of global warming. It's not hidden, scientists study it all the time. But that minor cause is hard to fix, there's no good substitute for jet fuel. Cars are a much bigger source, and we have many practical ways to reduce greenhouse gases from cars. So it makes more sense to focus on cars.

Answer 4

I have tried to find a distribution of CO2 by altitude, height, or elevation, and come up blank. CO2 is almost exactly 1.5 times as dense as air at any temperature, so it is not buoyant in air once temperature equalized.

For some good reading, check out this source:

http://www.rocketscientistsjournal.com/2006/10/co2_acquittal.html

Answer 5

There's no layer. The CO2 bounces heat back to the ground from everywhere in the atmosphere, even inches from the ground.

Answer 6

That sounds like a very unproven number...