What is the greenhouse effect?

What is the greenhouse effect?
The scientific definition is: The Greenhouse Effect is the process by which certain gases (principally water vapour, carbon dioxide and methane) trap heat that radiates from the earth.

Image courtesy of http://maps.grida.no/go/graphic/greenhouse-effect

Is this a good thing or a bad thing?
This effect is a natural process implemented by the Creator to maintain optimum living conditions on earth. Without it our earth would be an arctic wasteland where nothing would grow.

What are greenhouse gases?
Greenhouse gases are those gases in earth’s atmosphere which absorb and emit thermal infrared radiation. The greenhouse gases that are found in our atmosphere are water vapour, carbon dioxide, methane, nitrous oxide and ozone.

All of these absorb the radiated heat from the earths surface which heats up the atmosphere.

Does it have anything to do with global warming?
There are two schools of thought when it comes to this question. Those who believe that the increase of carbon dioxide (commonly called CO2 emission these days) is causing an elevated earth temperature which is what is referred to as global warming.

The other group believes that while the concentration of carbon dioxide has increased over the years since the industrial revolution but that the sum total of carbon dioxide produced by human activity is actually only 3%. Therefore they claim that the greenhouse effect was here before the Industrial Revolution and is not a reason to be as alarming as the media and other organizations would have you believe.

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