Carbon dioxide surface, warming the surface and the lower atmosphere. Less energy reaches the upper atmosphere, which is therefore cooler because of this absorption. Increases in atmospheric concentrations of and other long-lived greenhouse gases such as methane, nitrous oxide and ozone have correspondingly strengthened their absorption and emission of infrared radiation, causing the rise in average global temperature since the mid-20th century. Carbon dioxide is of greatest concern because it exerts a larger overall warming influence than all of these other gases combined and because it has a long atmospheric lifetime (hundreds to thousands of years). Not only do increasing carbon dioxide
Sulfur hexafluoride with satisfactory accuracy at very low concentrations, and the Earth's atmosphere has a negligible concentration of . Sulfur hexafluoride was used as a non-toxic test gas in an experiment at St. John's Wood tube station in London, United Kingdom on 25 March 2007. The gas was released throughout the station, and monitored as it drifted around. The purpose of the experiment, which had been announced earlier in March by the Secretary of State for Transport Douglas Alexander, was to investigate how toxic gas might spread throughout London Underground stations and buildings during a terrorist attack. Sulfur hexafluoride is also routinely