Have you ever wondered why the climate keeps changing? What exactly makes you to think that it is effecting your nature for green living? Well, the answer to this question is greenhouse effects. First of all to start with what is greenhouse effects? Green House effects is the phenomenon in which gases are present. Some kind of gases found are water vapor, carbon dioxide and methane. The greenhouse effect occurs by trapping the present air which has been heated by the sunlight and which allows sunlight to pass through from the earth’s surface.
Now, one more question I have is where this term “greenhouse effect” came from and who came up with this terminology. This terminology came up in the year 1824 when a scientist named Joseph Fourier initiated the argument about this. Later, the follow up happened by another scientist named Alexander Bell. He has observed this with the help of alternate energy resources such as solar energy.
How does this happen? What are the mechanisms by which this occurs? The mechanism by which the greenhouse effects occur by Earth gets energy which is absorbed by the sun. From the sun, it has various forms such as ultra violet rays, IR radiation, etc. These various forms are then later passed to the atmosphere present in the Earth without being absorbed. The total amount of energy which is available at the top of the atmosphere is later absorbed by the Earth surface at the percentage of 50%. After the Earth surface absorbing the energy, it will become warm as it will radiate IR thermal radiation which consists of wavelength. The IR thermal radiation is absorbed by the atmosphere and later re-radiated both upwards and downwards in the atmosphere. The downwards thermal radiation would be again absorbed by Earth’s surface.
The greenhouse gases which are present in this effect have the following percent involved. The percentage of water vapor which is involved in this effect is 36-70%. For carbon dioxide, it is 9 to 26%, for methane it is 4 to 9% and for ozone it is 3 to 7%.
What plays the major role in the change in the climate? Two major things play a major role in climate changing, they are the nature as well as the human activities. Before we have discussed how the nature plays one of the major roles in the climate changing. Now through human activities, how it affects the climate is what will be discussed. Carbon dioxide will be produced by fossil fuel burning and other activities such as cement production and tropical deforestation.
Greenhouse effect will only happen when there is a greenhouse built. What are the requirements needed to build this? Basically it can be built with any material as long as sunlight passes through it. Preferable materials used are generally plastic or glass. As the sunlight passes through the glass of the green house, it will heat up inside air present in it. Generally the greenhouse will heat the Earth by re-radiating some of the energy back to surface. It heats the Earth as greenhouse gases absorbs the radioactive energy which leads to heating the atmosphere which emits the radioactive energy.
Due to the increase in carbon dioxide and other greenhouse gases, these help in global warming. As well as the action which is involved between the carbon dioxide and the greenhouse gases are also trapped in the infrared rays, which is also known as greenhouse effects.
An example to explain the greenhouse effect is imagine a car being parked in the middle of the parking lot where there is no shade. So, after you leave the car there and come back after 3 hours, you will find that once you sit inside the car, it is like a steamer. How does this happen? Well, the sunlight passes through all the glasses present in your car, actually the sunlight would be the longer infrared rays as they are not ready to enter. But once they enter the glass, they are trapped by the warm energy of the interior of the car. Hence, they have trapped the hot air which is present. With this example, it shows the increasing atmospheric carbon dioxide.
How to prevent this greenhouse effect? Well, in order to prevent the greenhouse effect, we need to prevent the emissions of all the greenhouse gases present as well as the carbon dioxide. Another way to prevent the greenhouse effect is by keeping track of how much energy usage has been done. As well as how much fossil fuels such as coal, oil, and natural gas are burned. In order to restore the carbon dioxide, it is better if each and every citizen starts to plant trees. Basically, another way by which we can reduce the usage of fossil fuels is by walking or using a cycle for shorter distances. Hence, these are some ways in which greenhouse effects is harmful to environment as well as how we can prevent these to happen.
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