Our Climate Situation

The greenhouse effect is a good thing.

It warms the planet to its comfortable average of 59 degrees Fahrenheit (15 degrees Celsius) and keeps life on earth, well, livable.

Without it the world would be a frozen, uninhabitable place, more like Mars.

The problem is, mankind’s voracious burning of fossil fuels for energy is artificially amping up the natural greenhouse effect.

The result? An increase in global warming that is altering the planet’s climate systems in countless ways.

Here’s a look at what the greenhouse effect is, what causes it, and how we can temper its contributions to our changing climate.

What Is the Greenhouse Effect?

Identified by scientists as far back as 1896, the greenhouse effect is the natural warming of the earth
that results when gases in the atmosphere trap heat from the sun that would otherwise escape into space.

What Causes the Greenhouse Effect?

Sunlight makes the earth habitable.
While 30 percent of the solar energy that reaches our world is reflected back to space,
approximately 70 percent passes through the atmosphere to the earth’s surface,
where it is absorbed by the land, oceans, and atmosphere, and heats the planet.

This heat is then radiated back up in the form of invisible infrared light.

While some of this infrared light continues on into space,
the vast majority—indeed, some 90 percent—gets absorbed by atmospheric gases,
known as greenhouse gases, and redirected back toward the earth, causing further warming.

Source: NRDC