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Understanding the Greenhouse Effect

The greenhouse effect occurs when greenhouse gases like water vapor, carbon dioxide, methane, and ozone in the atmosphere trap heat radiating from the Earth's surface, warming the planet. Global warming refers to the long-term rise in the Earth's temperatures over recent decades due to human activity. Evidence shows the climate is warming as most additional energy trapped since 1970 has heated up the oceans, with the rest melting ice and warming land and air.

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4 views1 page

Understanding the Greenhouse Effect

The greenhouse effect occurs when greenhouse gases like water vapor, carbon dioxide, methane, and ozone in the atmosphere trap heat radiating from the Earth's surface, warming the planet. Global warming refers to the long-term rise in the Earth's temperatures over recent decades due to human activity. Evidence shows the climate is warming as most additional energy trapped since 1970 has heated up the oceans, with the rest melting ice and warming land and air.

Uploaded by

Klifford
Copyright
© All Rights Reserved
We take content rights seriously. If you suspect this is your content, claim it here.
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Download as DOCX, PDF, TXT or read online on Scribd

The greenhouse effect is the process by which radiation from a planet's atmosphere warms the planet's surface to

a temperature above what it would be in the absence of its atmosphere. If a planet's atmosphere contains radiatively
active gases (i.e., greenhouse gases) the atmosphere radiates energy in all directions. Part of this radiation is
directed towards the surface, warming it.
Greenhouse gases:

water vapor, 3670%

carbon dioxide, 926%

methane, 49%

ozone, 37%

Global warming and climate change are terms for the observed century-scale rise in the average temperature of
the Earth's climate system and its related effects.
Multiple lines of scientific evidence show that the climate system is warming. Although the increase of near-surface
atmospheric temperature is the measure of global warming often reported in the popular press, most of the
additional energy stored in the climate system since 1970 has gone into ocean warming. The remainder has melted
ice and warmed the continents and atmosphere. Many of the observed changes since the 1950s are unprecedented
over decades to millennia.

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