How does carbon dioxide effect global warming?

Question

How does carbon dioxide effect global warming?

Answer 1

By driving it. CO2 is a very strong green house gas and represents approximately 9-20% of the total greenhouse effect, as well as being responsible of approximately 55% of the current warming.

It has also driven past warmings, even though it didn't start them. Past climate changes have usually been started by variations in Earth's orbit (which aren't occuring now), which caused CO2 to be released from the oceans, driving the temperature up even higher.

Answer 2

The same way smoke effects fire.

Answer 3

Something about how it traps heat or something, I know I have been told why but I dont remember.

Answer 4

Carbon dioxide is transparent to visible light and mostly opaque to infrared light.  The main source of energy for the Earth is sunlight, and the temperature of the Earth is a result of the balance between heating from the Sun (and some other sources that are less important) and cooling by radiation of infrared light into space.  Putting more carbon dioxide in the atmosphere reduces the cooling by infrared light (at a given temperature), without changing the heating by visible sunlight.  The temperature of the surface of the Earth must therefore increase, in order to maintain a rate of cooling that balances the rate of heating. (The amount of infrared light emitted from the surface goes up as the temperature goes up.)  Roughly speaking, adding carbon dioxide to the atmosphere is like adding another banket to your bed---the heating is the same, but the cooling is reduced, leading to a warmer temperature underneath the insulating blanket.

The question of climate change is more complex, because there are numerous other effects.  For example, raising the temperature a little tends to increase the amount of cloud cover, and the clouds, being white, reflect some sunlight back into space, decreasing the heating.  But the net effect of adding carbon dioxide to the atmosphere is some amount of surface warming---this is simple, straightforward physics.  All the indications are that the amount of extra carbon dioxide we have already put into the atmosphere by burning fossil fuels has definitely caused some warming, and as we put even more carbon dioxide into the atmosphere, this warming will increase even more.

Answer 5

It doesn't because scientists have proven that if the temperature has gone up then the carbon dioxide goes up. U can google it for more info.

Answer 6

Your question should be: How does "global warming" affect carbon dioxide  All of the science points to the fact past increases in the global temperature came BEFORE increases in carbon dioxide and NOT AFTER.   I have add a link to help with your research...