Someone explain the greenhouse effect to me in a non-confusing way?

Question

I tried to read the internet sources, but all of them were so confusing, which was VERY, VERY frustrating.

I tried to summarize it. I wound up with "The earth absorbs 70% of the energy of the sun's rays, due to greenhouse gases. This is called the greenhouse effect. Without the greenhouse effect, the earth would be so cold it would be inhabitable."

How does this relate to global warming?

More importantly, is this accurate?

If not, how would you summarize the greenhouse effect in a way any 13-year-old can understand? (Probably should be under 4 sentences)

Answer 1

in a nut shell.

the link you gave is wrong. it breaks the laws of physics.

greenhouse gasses "trap heat".

they do this by absorbing infra-red radiation given off by the earth. it works the same way as a space blanked dose.

it relates to global warming because we are adding more greenhouse gasses to the atmosphere. more greenhouse gasses means that less heat can escape from the earth. causing warming. its sort of like having on a jumper then adding a thinker one over it.

Answer 2

In a greenhouse, sunlight enters and can't escape.  This is like the "Greenhouse Effect"...as we pollute, carbon dioxide is released into the air.  This traps sunlight, instead of the sunlight escaping into space like usual.  This trapped sunlight raises the temperature on Earth, and melts the icecaps.  Due to the Greenhouse Effect, 20% of the icecaps have melted so far.

Answer 3

Benjamin's answer is right. The greenhouse effect works by reducing Earth's "emissivity." That is, it slows the speed at which energy can flow from Earth to space. The idea that the greenhouse effect is trapping heat in the atmosphere is a common misconception.

Imagine if Earth were just a solid black ball floating in space (we can even ignore its dimensions to make it simpler). Physics tells us that in order to stay at a constant temperature, Earth has to radiate energy at the same speed it is absorbing energy from the sun. If there is more energy coming in than going out, Earth will warm. If there's more energy going out than going in, Earth will cool.

The greenhouse effect warms the planet by slowing the rate energy can escape to space. When Earth absorbs short wave energy from the sun (light), it reradiates long wave energy back out to space. Some of this long wave energy is absorbed by the atmosphere instead of escaping to space. The atmosphere then reradiates half of this energy upward to space, and half of it back down to Earth. Since Earth is now getting energy one and a half times as fast as it's losing it to space, it warms.

A greenhouse gas is any gas present in Earth's atmosphere that is both transparent to the downward shortwave energy from the sun, and opaque to the long wave upward energy from Earth. The most important greenhouse gas is water vapor, which makes up about 36-66% of the overall greenhouse effect. The second most important is carbon dioxide, which makes up about 9-36% of the overall effect. The ranges in the percentages is because the absorption bands of most of the greenhouse gases overlap a little.

Some rough calculations would show that, without the greenhouse effect, Earth would be about 33ºC cooler than it is now. Since this is well below the freezing point of water, the planet would be a frozen wasteland and life as we know it wouldn't be possible.

All this relates to the current global warming because humans have greatly enhanced Earth's greenhouse effect by adding large amounts of greenhouse gases to the atmosphere. In fact, nearly all of the 20th century warming trend can be attributed to an enhanced greenhouse effect.

Your explanation is basically right, except that Earth would be absorbing the same amount of energy whether the greenhouse effect existed or not. It would just be lost back to space much faster. The best summation of the greenhouse effect I've ever heard was written by the British scientist John Tyndall. He put it this way: "As a dam built across a river causes a local deepening of the stream, so our atmosphere, thrown as a barrier across the terrestrial [long wave] rays, produces a local heightening of the temperature at Earth's surface."

Well, that pretty exhausts my meagre explanatory powers. Hopefully it wasn't too confusing. But if you want a clearer and more in depth look at the greenhouse effect, I strongly recommend picking up the book, "The Discovery of Global Warming," by physicist and climate historian Spencer Weart.

Hope this helps!

Answer 4

well look at a greenhouse and then scale that up to the size of earth and replace the glass with atmosphere and then consider how we effect the atmosphere with pollutants, it would kinda be like breaking the glass except outside is not earth its space, some say it will get warn some say it will get cold(like nuclear winter) we should think about these things and make laws that protect that glass, at least for now because humans are still quite fragile compared to just our solar system.

I hope this helped.

Answer 5

The atmosphere is hard for adults to understand-though some are trying. The earth has gone through many changes in time. Even time is relative. The sun produces all wavelengths of energy-the electromagnetic spectrum. Man started changing the atmosphere when he learned to us fire. But ti took till the 1930's to be able to destroy the ozone layer. Humans began releasing freon for newly discovered refrigeration and air conditioning units. These releases were made worse by putting r-11 into hairspray-those does in the 1960's. Now half of the ozone is gone. We have taken out half of the wetlands, half the forests, half the grasslands. So earth surface is warming and we must change the way we use earth. The sun produces enough energy to drive all power to humans for a year in one hour.

Answer 6

the gas that they are referring to basically gets absorbed in to the clouds and brings in all the energy the sun gives off. but the gasses are basically in the clouds and is acting like a sunblock kind of thing, and bounces all the energy off, back towards the earth. so more and more energy keeps coming into our atmosphere and we are unable to release it. in simple terms, the greenhouse effect.

Answer 7

I'd like to know too.

Answer 8

Try this website

http://www.junkscience.com/Greenhouse/

Answer 9

The green house effect is in question.

     The CO2 was the bad thing because the experimenter thought we were using too much fuel. Try measuring the CO2 ,the plants have eliminated almost all of it. CO2 is a very heavy gas ,in fact it is used as a fire extinguisher.

     The Methane that is supposed to be so bad ,I can not find it. It is so light that it is high in our atmosphere . The environmentalist want u to believe that there is a great ocean if it up there. We have airplanes that fly through it upper air and there is no explosions. Oh yes Methane is very explosive.

Answer 10

The suns rays seep through the atmosphere. The atmosphere acts like plastic by holding it all in. It keeps our little planet nice and warm; just like in a greenhouse. :)

Answer 11

Solar heat reaches Earth in the form of visible and UV light. Some of this light is reflected back into space by clouds and light-scattering particles before it reaches Earth’s surface. Most of the light does reach Earth's surface, providing warmth for sunbathers and energy for photosynthesis in plants.

Once this energy warms the planet, it is then reflected off of Earth and back towards space in the form of longwave energy, or infrared light. Some of this infrared energy escapes into outer space, and some will be absorbed by molecules in the atmosphere. Most molecules in the atmosphere, such as nitrogen and oxygen, can not absorb this infrared energy. Greenhouse gases (CO2, H2O, and CH4) are "tuned" to absorb energy at infrared wavelengths. Absorbing energy "excites" these greenhouse molecules.

Because energy can neither be created nor destroyed, "excited" greenhouse gas molecules will gradually radiate its captured infrared energy as heat. Heat is radiated from "excited" greenhouse molecules into all directions; some of the energy is lost to space, some is directed downwards and warms earth's surface even more.

It is very rare that you will find someone that completely disagrees with modern physics properties such as the fact that CO2 and other gases act as greenhouse gases (capturing escaping infrared energy to then release as heat.) Earth has a natural greenhouse gas effect. It is true that if the atmosphere completely lacked greenhouse gases, then the global temperate would then be about 30°C (55° Fahrenheit) cooler. Water would be locked away as ice, and life would probably not be possible.

Answer 12

Carbon dioxide gets in the atmosphere, blocks out coolness. Traps heat, global warming occurs. Carbon dioxide disintegrates ozone layer, and sun's UV rays can cause skin cancer.

Answer 13

Sure.  It's called the greenhouse effect because it's how glass greenhouses work.  Sorry, can't do it in four sentences.  Science can be hard, but it's like anything else, keep trying and you'll get it.

Radiant heat is a form of energy just like light, xrays, and radio waves.  

An object exposed to radiant energy (heat and light) will absorb the energy, heat up, and then re-radiate the energy as heat.

Objects re-radiate the heat at a lower wavelength than they absorb it.

The sun sends us energy in short wavelengths.

Glass is a very special material that is transparent to (passes) light and short wave heat but opaque to (blocks) long wave heat.

So, if you put a glass house in the sun, or maybe just your car with the glass windows rolled up, the short wave energy gets let into the space but the re-emitted long wave heat gets trapped because it can't get back out the glass.  Isn't it nice how your car sitting in the sun on a cold winter day can still be toasty inside?

Carbon Dioxide is a greenhouse gas because it passes (short wave) energy from the sun but blocks (long wave heat) energy re-radiated from the earth.

Carbon Dioxide is the glass that helps keep our greenhouse earth warm.

It's more complicated because water vapor is actually the major greenhouse gas for our atmosphere, but that is another discussion.

Hope this helps.

Answer 14

Normal glass that green houses are made from is transparent to visible light but not infrared light. Visible light from the Sun passes through the glass and hits the ground and other things in the green house. Some of the light just bounces off those things and goes back out through the glass, but some is absorbed, and that causes these things to warm up. That is why you feel the warmth of the Sun. You body absorbs some of the Sunlight and the energy in that light changes to heat in your body. Then the warm plants and ground emit infrared light. Just like a white hot light bulb filament emits white light and a red hot iron emits red light, a cooler, but still not cold, object like a person or rock or plant emits light, but because it is cooler than the red hot iron, and MUCH cooler than the white hot light bulb, it emits light even redder than red. It is infrared light that we cannot see. That invisible light takes energy away with it as it leaves. But the glass in the green house is not transparent to that color light, so it gets either absorbed by the glass or bounced back to the ground in the green house and the heat it was carrying stays in there. The trapped heat makes the green house warmer. In the Earth's atmosphere, certain gasses do the same thing, letting in visible light but blocking infrared light coming from the ground. One of those gasses is carbon dioxide, and widespread burning of coal, oil and natural gas has caused the amount of carbon dioxide in the air to go up from about about 0.027% of the air 200 years ago to about 0.037% today. That is where all the global warming worries come from.

Answer 15

ok, as the sun's rays come into the atmospere, the atmosphere absorbes the rays and uses the rays to heat up the earth.

Answer 16

Hi there, Strange...

Big oil has been paying good money to keep most people from seeing the truth. have you ever seen those old oil lamps with the glass chimney? you light them, and they smoke and do not give much light... but you cover the flame with the glass, and it reflects the inferred, while passing the white light... or, holds the heat in. As we get more and more CO2 in the oceans, the Himacanes/Hurricanes will continue to grow worse decade to decade. this is how the oceans get rid of heat. unfortunately, this will not purge CO2... just the after effects.

I have some info I may dig out and add to this later

ME!

""World's carbon dioxide emissions rising at alarming rate""

By Doyle Rice, USA TODAY

http://www.usatoday.com/weather/climate/...

Carbon dioxide — the greenhouse gas considered most responsible for global warming — has been emitted into the Earth's atmosphere at a dramatically accelerating pace since 2000, researchers reported Monday.

"Carbon dioxide is rising at a much faster rate than before," says study co-author Christopher Field, director of the Carnegie Institution's Department of Global Ecology in California. "In the 1990s, CO2 emissions increased by about 1.3% per year. Since 2000, the growth rate has been 3.3% per year." The researchers calculate that global carbon-dioxide emissions were 35% higher in 2006 than in 1990.

What's especially troubling, notes lead author Josep Canadell of Australia's Commonwealth Scientific and Industrial Research Organization, is most climate scenarios used by scientists and policymakers to predict temperature increases are based on the 1.3% rise. Greenhouse gases such as carbon dioxide warm the planet by trapping heat in the atmosphere.

Canadell says that while the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change predicts "we will have temperature increases of 3.2 to 7.1 degrees by the end of the century, … we're well on the way to the higher temperature increase if the emissions keep going up at this rate."

Higher global temperatures have been predicted to cause rising sea levels, more frequent heat waves and wildfires, and huge losses of ice in the Arctic and Antarctic.

FIND MORE STORIES IN: Colorado | Australian | Boulder | Nobel Peace Prize | National Academy of Sciences | Kyoto Protocol | Rutgers University | Climate Change | Arctic | Coke | Proceedings | Vice President Al Gore | National Center for Atmospheric Research | Commonwealth Scientific | Industrial Research Organization | United Nations Intergovernmental Panel | Global Carbon Project | Robock | Center for Environmental Prediction | Trenberth

The study was published in this week's Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences. It states that carbon released from burning fossil fuels and making cement rose from 7 billion metric tons a year in 2000 to 8.4 billion metric tons in 2006. A metric ton is 2,205 pounds.

The growing world economy is fueling the emissions. "Our ability to become more carbon-efficient is declining, especially since 2000," Field says. "We're no longer seeing progress in this area, which is probably a reflection of a large amount of coal coming into the power system."

Another factor is the reduced amount of carbon dioxide naturally absorbed by the Earth's land, plants and oceans, known as "carbon sinks." Study co-author Thomas Conway of the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration's Earth System Research Laboratory in Boulder, Colo., says, "Carbon sinks were keeping up with the increased emissions, but now they're not."

Canadell confirms this: "We now know that significant contributions to the growth of atmospheric CO2 arise from the slowdown" of nature's ability to take the chemical out of the air.

The research was supported by Australian, European and other international agencies.

Contributing: The Associated Press

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Answer 17

Ok, it's pretty complicated no matter how it's explained, but basically, the sun gives off short wave rays which are able to go through our atmosphere without any problems. These rays hit the earth and some of the energy of the rays is absorbed at heat or taken in by plants. The earth then transforms the short rays into long wave rays (infrared). Unlike the short wave rays, the long wave rays CAN be trapped by the various particles in the atmosphere (mostly by CO2). Since these rays can't escape they cause the Earth to stay warmer. And the second part of your paragraph is right, we HAVE to be able to keep some of these rays and there should always be CO2 in the atmosphere, the problem now is that coal releases CO2 and now we are trapping too much heat and the Earth is warming. I know this is probably too much for a 13 year old, but basically, the sun delivers heat to Earth that comes through the atmosphere, but then it changes down here and can't leave.

I hope this helped.

Answer 18

Okay...

  

Earth has warmed by about 1ºF over the past 100 years. But why? And how? Well, scientists are not exactly sure. The Earth could be getting warmer on its own, but many of the world's leading climate scientists think that things people do are helping to make the Earth warmer.

Greenhouse Effect, Climate Change,

and Global Warming

The Greenhouse Effect: Scientists are sure about the greenhouse effect. They know that greenhouse gases make the Earth warmer by trapping energy in the atmosphere.

The greenhouse effect is the rise in temperature that the Earth experiences because certain gases in the atmosphere (water vapor, carbon dioxide, nitrous oxide, and methane, for example) trap energy from the sun. Without these gases, heat would escape back into space and Earth’s average temperature would be about 60ºF colder. Because of how they warm our world, these gases are referred to as greenhouse gases.

Climate Change: Climate is the long-term average of a region's weather events lumped together. For example, it's possible that a winter day in Buffalo, New York, could be sunny and mild, but the average weather – the climate – tells us that Buffalo's winters will mainly be cold and include snow and rain. Climate change represents a change in these long-term weather patterns. They can become warmer or colder. Annual amounts of rainfall or snowfall can increase or decrease.

Global Warming: Global warming refers to an average increase in the Earth's temperature, which in turn causes changes in climate. A warmer Earth may lead to changes in rainfall patterns, a rise in sea level, and a wide range of impacts on plants, wildlife, and humans. When scientists talk about the issue of climate change, their concern is about global warming caused by human activities.