GREENHOUSE EFFECT Climate Change Greenhouse Effect Is a

GREENHOUSE EFFECT Climate Change

Greenhouse Effect • Is a natural process that permits the Earth to retain some of the heat from the sun. • Gases in the atmosphere (water vapor, carbon dioxide, nitrous oxide, and methane) trap energy from the sun.

Without Gases • Without these gases, heat would escape back into space and Earth’s average temperature would be about -18 °C. • Because of how they warm our world, these gases are referred to as greenhouse gases.

• Energy from the Sun passes through the atmosphere. • Some Infrared rays are absorbed, then emitted back to the atmosphere. • The greenhouse gases capture these rays and return them to the earth.

• A portion of the energy (26%) is reflected or scattered back to space. • About 19% of the energy available is absorbed by clouds, gases like ozone. • The remaining 55% of the energy passing through the Earth's atmosphere, 4% is reflected from the surface back to space. • On average, about 51% of the Sun's radiation reaches the surface.

• This energy is then used in a number of processes, including the heating of the ground surface; the melting of ice and snow and the evaporation of water; and plant photosynthesis.

Human Activity • How are we changing the greenhouse effect?

• Normally most of the CO 2 came from Forest Fires, Volcanic Eruptions and Cellular Respiration • Now the increase of fossil fuels and the clear cutting of Forests is shifting the balance of the CO 2 present in the atmosphere

Greenhouse Demo Graph