Thursday 15 October 2015

What is Greenhouse effect?

‘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 in the absence of its atmosphere. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Greenhouse_effect

An example:  a car parked outside on a cold, sunny day. Incoming solar radiation warms the car's interior, but outgoing thermal radiation is trapped inside the car's closed windows.

So Greenhouse effect is the exchange of incoming and outgoing radiation that warms the Earth.  www.mother-nature-blog.com

“There's a delicate balancing act occurring every day all across the Earth, involving the radiation the planet receives from space and the radiation that's reflected back out to space.

[Earth is constantly bombarded with enormous amounts of radiation, primarily from the sun. This solar radiation strikes the Earth's atmosphere in the form of visible light, plus ultraviolet (UV), infrared (IR) and other types of radiation that are invisible to the human eye.]

It's this equilibrium of incoming and outgoing radiation that makes the Earth habitable, with an average temperature of about 59 degrees Fahrenheit (15 degrees Celsius), according to NASA.” http://www.livescience.com/37743-greenhouse-effect.html

However, due to increased levels of carbon dioxide, CFCs, and other pollutants in the atmosphere, this balance has been disturbed, leading too…

‘Global warming’ taking place – which is a gradual increase in the overall temperature – that is…the gradual heating of Earth’s surface, oceans and atmosphere.

What is CFC’s? (Chlorofluorocarbon)
“Any of a class of compounds of carbon, hydrogen, chlorine, and fluorine, typically gases used in refrigerants and aerosol propellants. They are harmful to the ozone layer in the earth's atmosphere owing to the release of chlorine atoms on exposure to ultraviolet radiation.” https://www.google.co.za/?gws_rd=ssl#safe=active&q=what+is+cfc