ENSC 21100 Lecture Notes - Lecture 1: Global Warming Potential, Tropospheric Ozone, Normal Scheme
9 Nov 2016
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Document Summary
The reason our earth is habitable is because it is like a greenhouse. Sunlight penetrates through the atmosphere, warming the earth"s surface, then radiating back to space (infrared radiation). A portion of this outgoing heat is retained in the earth"s atmosphere and radiated all around by greenhouse gases. In terms of global climate change, greenhouse gases play an active role in altering the earth"s climate. In the normal scheme of things, the greenhouse effect is a good thing. It creates conditions which are optimal for life as greenhouse gases trap just enough of the sun"s heat on the earth"s surface to maintain the temperature required for the survival of human life. But now there is too much greenhouse gas and it"s trapping too much heat, which is wreaking havoc on earth in the form of global warming. Greenhouse gases have many direct and indirect effects on climate change.
