Major greenhouse gases are well mixed and take many years to leave the atmosphere. 
The atmospheric lifetime of a greenhouse gas refers to the time required to restore equilibrium following a sudden increase or decrease in its concentration in the atmosphere. Individual atoms or molecules may be lost or deposited to sinks such as the soil, the oceans and other waters, or vegetation and other biological systems, reducing the excess to background concentrations. The average time taken to achieve this is the mean lifetime. This can be represented through the following formula, where the  lifetime  of an atmospheric species X in a one-box model is the average time that a molecule of X remains in the box.
 can also be defined as the ratio of the mass  (in kg) of X in the box to its removal rate, which is the sum of the flow of X out of the box
chemical loss of X
and deposition of X
(all in kg/s):
If input of this gas into the box ceased, then after time , its concentration would decrease by about 63%.
Changes to any of these variables can alter the atmospheric lifetime of a greenhouse gas. For instance, methanes atmospheric lifetime is estimated to have been lower in the 19th century than now, but to have been higher in the second half of the 20th century than after 2000. Carbon dioxide has an even more variable lifetime, which cannot be specified down to a single number. Scientists instead say that while the first 10% of carbon dioxides airborne fraction (not counting the ~50%  absorbed by land and ocean sinks within the emission's first year) is removed "quickly", the vast majority of the airborne fraction – 80% – lasts for "centuries to millennia". The remaining 10% stays for tens of thousands of years. In some models, this longest-lasting fraction is as large as 30%.