However, bouyancy doesn't occur in freefall because there is no gravitational field to generate up or down, so ice cubes would jumble around in a glass of water every which way according to brownian motion.
There needs to be a change in momentum to cause a less dense material to jumble on top of a more dense material which occurs naturally in the presence of gravitational or acceleration fields.
Buoyancy is also caused by less massive objects bouncing faster and further than more massive objects given the same level of impulse or force being applied over time.
In air, millions of molecules are jumbling and bouncing around in a gravitational field, and satistically the lighter masses end up higher than heavier masses. Earth is an open system and thereby is exposed to the light, shadows, and reflections from the sun, and many different molecules absorb many different wavelengths and get different levels of impulses than other molecules do which causes weather and climate patterns.
So you can in fact get the paradox of more dense gasses at higher elevations than lighter gasses, but over time bouyancy should still equalize the distributions.
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