Quote:
Originally Posted by Rupert
As Earth has a lot more than 1km of air, that doesn't follow.
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The scale height of the atmosphere is a bit above 8 km. Remember, it gets thinner as altitude increases, so the total mass isn't linear in the height of the atmosphere.
A fairly simple proof for this: air pressure at sea level is 101 kPa. The source of pressure is the weight of the atmosphere above you. The weight of atmosphere is mass * G, so the mass is 101 kPa/9.8N/kg = 10,300 kg/m^2.