ReinyDays
Gold Member
Earth's atmosphere is not physically confined by a barrier like a plastic enclosure you use in a lab. It is subject to gravity, duh, but if we had two polar oceans, the atmosphere would physically expand as well as increase surface pressure. Your lab may not simulate that correctly. An enclosure would increase surface pressure more than a planet atmosphere increased with more gas molecules, assuming same/proportionate - lab vs planet.
Your simulation takes the physical growth, the volume growth, of Earth's atmosphere and packs it back inside a barrier.
FAIL
Surface pressure is defined as the weight of the air column above it ... for a square meter at mean sea level, this is 101.3 newtons of weight ... this converts to 14.7 pounds of weight per square inch ...
Yes ... the Earth's atmosphere is FORCED onto her surface, squeezed tight against ... just like water, and for the exact same reasons ... Naviar/Stokes rules fluid motion ... both liquids and gases ...
The same force that's holding you in your chair ... [giggle] ... the math is succinct, look it up ...