The earth has natural greenhouse gases that are released into the atmosphere. The greenhouse effect is the effect where gases in the atmosphere allow heat in but only some out. There are two types of greenhouses gases, forcing and feedbacks. Forcing are gases that do not change due to climate feedbacks are gases that do change due to climate. Co2 is a forcing gas and water is a feedback gas. NASA’s global climate change scientists say that “the clearing of land for agriculture, industry, and other human activities have increased concentrations of greenhouse gases.”
The idea of the greenhouse effect goes back to the 19th century when a Frenchman named Joseph Fourier deduced that the world would be much colder without an atmosphere. Then years later a swedish scientist was the first to link a rise in carbon dioxide to a rise in global temperature. In the National Geographic article on climate change they stated “Atmospheric levels of carbon dioxide—the most dangerous and prevalent greenhouse gas—are at the highest levels ever recorded.”
The earth needs a natural greenhouse effect to maintain a healthy temperature. Humans have affected this natural greenhouse gas by increasing the C02 percentage in the air by one third in just 200 years. This forcing gas traps a lot of excess heat warming our planet leading to global consequences. Some of these consequences are melting glaciers, warmer and dryer temperatures, more extreme temperatures and fish and plants may die due to the extreme temperature changes.
Hi Nic, this is a great post on greenhouse gases and how they effect our earth. I am actually doing a project on climate change, how it effects our earth, and ways we can turn climate change around. I know that there are specific things we can do to limit the amount of CO2 being emitted into the atmosphere while still generating the energy we need to support our lives, like using solar power, wind power, and hydro power instead of burning fossil fuels. However, do you know if it has proven to be more efficient or cheaper?