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Greenhouse Effect

The document discusses what a greenhouse is and how Earth's atmosphere acts as a natural greenhouse, keeping the planet warm enough to support life. It then discusses how increased greenhouse gases from human activities may be enhancing the greenhouse effect and warming the planet too much.

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Nicole Lacra
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59 views8 pages

Greenhouse Effect

The document discusses what a greenhouse is and how Earth's atmosphere acts as a natural greenhouse, keeping the planet warm enough to support life. It then discusses how increased greenhouse gases from human activities may be enhancing the greenhouse effect and warming the planet too much.

Uploaded by

Nicole Lacra
Copyright
© © All Rights Reserved
We take content rights seriously. If you suspect this is your content, claim it here.
Available Formats
Download as DOCX, PDF, TXT or read online on Scribd
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What is a greenhouse?

A greenhouse is made of glass. It traps the Sun's energy inside and keeps the plants warm, even in winter.

A greenhouse is a house made of glass. It has glass walls and a glass roof. People grow tomatoes and flowers
and other plants in them. A greenhouse stays warm inside, even during winter. Sunlight shines in and warms the
plants and air inside. But the heat is trapped by the glass and can't escape. So during the daylight hours, it gets
warmer and warmer inside a greenhouse, and stays pretty warm at night too.

How is Earth a greenhouse?


Earth's atmosphere does the same thing as the greenhouse. Gases in the atmosphere such as carbon dioxide do
what the roof of a greenhouse does. During the day, the Sun shines through the atmosphere. Earth's surface
warms up in the sunlight. At night, Earth's surface cools, releasing the heat back into the air. But some of the
heat is trapped by the greenhouse gases in the atmosphere. That's what keeps our Earth a warm and cozy 59
degrees Fahrenheit, on average.
Greenhouse effect of Earth's atmosphere keeps some of the Sun's energy from escaping back into space at night.

Is it warm in here, or is it just me?


You might think 59 degrees Fahrenheit is pretty cold. Or, you might think that's warm. It depends on what you
are used to. That temperature would melt all the Arctic ice. Yes, it's colder than 59 degrees in a lot of places,
and hotter than 59 degrees in a lot of places, but 59 is the average of all of the places.
If the atmosphere causes too much greenhouse effect, Earth just gets warmer and warmer.

The point is, if the greenhouse effect is too strong, Earth gets warmer and warmer. This is what is happening
now. Too much carbon dioxide and other greenhouse gases in the air are making the greenhouse effect stronger.

Why can't we just plant more trees?

You might well wonder, because, after all, trees—like all plants—take in carbon dioxide and give off oxygen.

Well, that might help a little. But, instead of planting more forests, some people are cutting them down and
burning them to make more farm land to feed the growing human population.

A forest burns. (Photograph copyright Woods Hole Research Center).


These coral are sick. They should be colorful, not bleached out. Credit: Bruno de Giusti.

The ocean also absorbs a lot, but not all, of the excess carbon dioxide in the air. Unfortunately, the increased
carbon dioxide in the ocean changes the water, making it more acidic. Ocean creatures don't like acidic water.
The bleached out, unhealthy coral in this picture is just one example of what acidic water can do.

Don't clouds keep Earth cooler?


Water in the atmosphere also acts as a greenhouse gas. The atmosphere contains a lot of water. This water can
be in the form of a gas—water vapor—or in the form of a liquid—clouds. Clouds are water vapor that has
cooled and condensed back into tiny droplets of liquid water.

Earth's clouds as seen from space.

Water in the clouds holds in some of the heat from Earth's surface. But the bright white tops of clouds also
reflect some of the sunlight back to space. So with clouds, some energy from the Sun never even reaches Earth's
surface.
How much the clouds affect the warming or cooling of Earth's surface is one of those tricky questions
that several NASA missions are aiming to answer.

Clouds prevent some of the Sun's energy from ever reaching Earth's surface.

Or do clouds make Earth warmer?


Here is a riddle—a serious one, not a joke:

As the ocean warms up, more water evaporates into the air. So does more water vapor then mean more
warming? And does more warming mean more water vapor? And ‘round and ‘round we go?
At night, clouds trap some of the heat from Earth's surface. Thus, it does not escape back into space.

Or, since more water vapor means more clouds, will the fluffy white clouds reflect enough sunlight back into
space to make up for the warming?

During the day, clouds reflect the Sun's energy back to space, before it has a chance to heat Earth's surface.

This cloud riddle has scientists scratching their heads and trying to figure it out. NASA is helping with satellites
like Aqua and CloudSat, which study the Earth's water cycle and clouds in 3-D.
The top image is a hurricane, as seen by a satellite. Below is a cross-section of the storm clouds. This colorful image was made with data from the
CloudSat satellite. It shows with different colors how much water is contained in the clouds at different heights.
DIFFERENT
Greenhouse gases are gases that can trap heat. They get their
name from greenhouses. A greenhouse is full of windows that let in
sunlight. That sunlight creates warmth. The big trick of a
greenhouse is that it doesn’t let that warmth escape.
That’s exactly how greenhouse gases act. They let sunlight pass
through the atmosphere, but they prevent the heat that the sunlight
brings from leaving the atmosphere. Overall, greenhouse gases are
a good thing. Without them, our planet would be too cold, and life
as we know it would not exist. But there can be too much of a good
thing. Scientists are worried that human activities are adding too
much of these gases to the atmosphere.
So, what are these gases all about?

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