Greenhouse Effect by Brian Teodoro

GREENHOUSE EFFECT

The greenhouse effect is the process in which the emission of infrared radiation by the atmosphere warms a planet's surface. The names comes an incorrect analogy with the warming of air inside a greenhouse compared.Joseph Fourier discovered the greenhouse effect in 1824 and Svante Arrhenius was the first to investigate quantitatively in 1986.

The Earth receives energy from the Sun in the form of radiation. Most of the energy is in visible wavelengths and in infrared wavelengths that are near the visible range (often called "near infrared"). The Earth about reflects 30% of the incoming solar radiation. The remaining 70% is absorbed, warming the land, atmosphere and oceans. The greenhouse effect has warmed the Earth for over 4 billion years. Now scientists are growing increasingly concerned that human activities may be modifying this natural process, with potentially dangerous consequences. Since the advent of the Industrial Revolution in the 1700s, humans have devised many inventions that burn fossil fuels such as coal, oil, and natural gas. Burning these fossil fuels, as well as other activities such as clearing land for agriculture or urban settlements, releases some of the same gases that trap heat in the atmosphere, including carbon dioxide, methane, and nitrous oxide. These atmospheric gases have risen to levels higher than at any time in the last 420,000 years. As these gases build up in the atmosphere, they trap more heat near the Earth’s surface, causing Earth’s climate to become warmer than it would naturally.

EFFORTS TO CONTROL GREENHOUSE GASES

Due to overwhelming scientific evidence and growing political interest, global warming is currently recognized as an important national and international issue. Since 1992 representatives from over 160 countries have met regularly to discuss how to reduce worldwide greenhouse gas emissions. In 1997 representatives met in Kyôto, Japan, and produced an agreement, known as the Kyôto Protocol, which requires industrialized countries to reduce their emissions by 2012 to an average of 5 percent below 1990 levels. To help countries meet this agreement cost-effectively, negotiators are trying to develop a system in which nations that have no obligations or that have successfully met their reduced emissions obligations could profit by selling or trading their extra emissions quotas to other countries that are struggling to reduce their emissions. Negotiating such detailed emissions trading rules has been a contentious task for the world community since the signing of the Kyôto Protocol. A ratified agreement is still not yet in force, and ratification received a setback in 2001 when newly elected U.S. president George W. Bush renounced the treaty on the grounds that the required carbon-dioxide reductions in the United States would be too costly. He also objected that developing nations would not be bound by similar carbon-dioxide reducing obligations. However, many experts expect that as the scientific evidence about the dangers of global warming continues to mount, nations will be motivated to cooperate more effectively to reduce the risks of climate change.

MY INSIGHTS REGARDING THIS TOPIC:

Green house effect occurs when sunlight passes into the atmosphere some are reflected, some are absorbed, this absorbed ligth warms the earth. In connection with the earths ozone layer, the greenhouse gases increase as years pass by, due to burning of coils and cutting trees (which absorbs carbon doixide). And if this process continues,there's a possibility that the world will experience global warming.