What does Greenhouse Effect Mean?

The greenhouse effect is a phenomenon where the atmosphere acts like the glass of a greenhouse. The Sun enters the sphere and heats the atmosphere which contains volatile chemical compounds called greehouse gases. These gases retain a portion of the sun's heat by trapping the infrared rays emitted by the Earth.

This is a naturally occurring phenomenon since greenhouse gases like carbon dioxide (CO2) are usually found in the atmosphere in quantities smaller than 1%.

This quantity of greenhouse gases helps maintain an average temperature of +15C on the planet's surface.

In other words, contrary to what I believed before doing this research, we DO need SOME chemical compounds in the atmosphere or else we would freeze to death. Now, luckily for us, the level of these gases has remained stable for about 8,000 years permitting us to live on a hospitable planet.

Unfortunately, with the coming of the industrial age, we have been burning ever-increasing quantities of fossil fuels. And guess what, one of the residues of burning fossil fuel is lots of greenhouse gases.

As I'm sure you have figured out by now, the greater the quantity of greenhouse gases (the greater the greenhouse effect), the more the surface of the planet heats up.

If we continue this way - releasing a volume of 3Gt of CO2 /year - we could see an increase of 5 to 7 degrees of global warming by 2100.

There are some people who argue that the planet has experienced swings in heating and cooling cycles over the past thousands of years. But even accounting for these cycles, the global warming recorded and documented in the last 100 years, mostly in the last 20 years, is way above normal variations.

Learn more about Global Warming

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