Heavier Than Carbon

a pinch of one gas outweighs a flood of another.

nudge three gases the same amount — feel which one moves the needle

Dragging each gas up by the exact same slider distance does not produce the same jump in the meter, because a tonne of methane or nitrous oxide traps far more heat than a tonne of carbon dioxide — the multipliers here are the real IPCC hundred-year global warming potentials, not a dramatized scale. The silence when a rising photon gets caught and re-emitted downward, versus the chime when it escapes to space, is that same asymmetry rendered as sound.

Concepts: ecology, heat.

An interactive you play with one thumb, on Wundr.