describe the greenhouse effect
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Answer:
The phenomenon of warming up of the Earth's atmosphere due to the trapping of sun's heat rays by carbon dioxide gas in the atmostphere
Answer:
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 without this atmosphere.[1][2]
Light energy (white arrows) emitted by the sun warms the earth's surface, which reflects the energy as heat (orange arrows) that warms the atmosphere. Much of the heat is captured by greenhouse gas molecules such as water, carbon dioxide, and methane.
Quantitative analysis: Energy flows between space, the atmosphere, and Earth's surface, with greenhouse gases in the atmosphere capturing a substantial portion of the heat reflected from the earth's surface.
Radiatively active gases (i.e., greenhouse gases) in a planet's atmosphere radiate energy in all directions. Part of this radiation is directed towards the surface, thus warming it.[3] The intensity of downward radiation – that is, the strength of the greenhouse effect – depends on the amount of greenhouse gases that the atmosphere contains. The temperature rises until the intensity of upward radiation from the surface, thus cooling it, balances the downward flow of energy.[4]
Earth's natural greenhouse effect is critical to supporting life, and initially was a precursor to life moving out of the ocean onto land. Human activities, mainly the burning of fossil fuels and clearcutting of forests, have increased the greenhouse effect and caused global warming.[5]
The planet Venus experienced a runaway greenhouse effect, resulting in an atmosphere which is 96% carbon dioxide, and a surface atmospheric pressure roughly the same as found 900 m (3,000 ft) underwater on Earth. Venus may have had water oceans, but they would have boiled off as the mean surface temperature rose to the current 735 K (462 °C; 863 °F).[6][7][8]
The term greenhouse effect is a slight misnomer, in the sense that physical greenhouses warm via a different mechanism. The greenhouse effect as an atmospheric mechanism functions through radiative heat loss[9] while a traditional greenhouse as a built structure blocks convective heat loss.[2] The result, however, is an increase in temperature in both cases.[10][11]
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