GREENHOUSE EFFECT

THE GREENHOUSE EFFECT



If the earth was not wrapped up in the air, which keeps it warm, it would be too cold for human life. Small amounts of carbon dioxide and other gases in the atmosphere helps to retain heat through a vital phenomenon called greenhouse effect. Sunlight passes through the atmosphere and reaches Earth's surface, some light is reflected and partly absorbed, the absorbed heat the surface. The hot surface emits infrared radiation into the atmosphere where small amounts of carbon dioxide prevented from escaping. Since prehistoric times the carbon dioxide helps regulate Earth's temperature. Because the combustion of large quantities of coal, oil and natural gas atmospheric carbon dioxide almost doubled in the last hundred years. Trees absorb CO2 from the air as part of their natural metabolism, as the man logging reduces the ability of forests to absorb CO2 from the air. It is believed that if you continue to burn large amounts of fossil fuels and keeps logging the greenhouse effect will cause the global temperature increase. An increase of only a few degrees would be sufficient to melt the polar ice caps which in turn would raise sea levels and inundate coastal cities.