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The concept of Green House Effect
There
is no denying the fact that Green House Effect is warming up of earth's
atmosphere due to the trapping of infra-red radiation reflected from the
earth's surface by the carbon dioxide layer in the atmosphere is called
green-house effect. The green-house effect in the atmosphere occurs due to the
presence of a blanket of carbon-dioxide gas in the atmosphere. This blanket of
carbon dioxide gas in the atmosphere allows the sunlight to come in freely but
does not allow the infra-red radiation reflected by the earth's surface to go
out. It is just because the sun light can come in freely but the intra-red rays
cannot go out freely that the temperature of earth's atmosphere is raised. The
rise in temperature produce gas in the by green-house effect on earth's
atmosphere depends on the amount of carbon dioxide gas in the atmosphere. In
other words, the proportion of carbon dioxide in atmosphere effects the
temperature of atmosphere. So, if the proportion of carbon dioxide gas in the
atmosphere increases, than the temperature of earth's atmosphere will also rise
further.
The name
"Green-house effect" comes from the fact that this effect is use in
horticulture for the upbringing of green plant's in small house made of glass
walls and glass root. The green walls and roofs of a green-house allows the
sun-light to come in freely but it does not allows the long wavelength infrared
radiations reflected by the soil, plants and other contents of greenhouse to go
out. These trapped intra-red rays show their heating effect due to which the
temperature is raised inside the green house. Thus, even without an external
supply of heat, the temperature inside a green house is found to be higher than
it is outside. Thus, green house acts as a heat trap. Due to the presence of
carbon dioxide, our atmosphere acts like the glass rat of an ordinary
horticultural green-house. Carbon dioxide
(CO2) is an atmospheric constituent that plays several vital roles
in the environment. It absorbs infrared radiation in the atmosphere. It plays a
crucial role in the weathering of rocks. It is the raw material for
photosynthesis and its carbon is incorporated into organic matter in the
biosphere and may eventually be stored in the Earth as fossil fuels.
It is a
significant fact that most of the sun's energy that falls on the Earth's
surface is in the visible light portion of the electromagnetic spectrum. This
is in large part because the Earth's atmosphere is transparent to these wave
lengths as we are conversant that with a functioning ozone layer, the higher
frequencies like ultraviolet are mostly screened out. In this respect part of
the sunlight is reflected back into space, depending on the reflectivity of the
surface. And another part of the sunlight is absorbed by
the Earth and held as thermal energy. This heat is then re-radiated in the form
of longer wavelength infrared radiation. While the dominant gases of the
atmosphere (nitrogen and oxygen) are transparent to infrared, the so-called
greenhouse gasses, primarily water vapor (H2O), CO2, and
methane (CH4), absorb some of the infrared radiation. They collect
this heat energy and hold it in the atmosphere, delaying its passage back out
of the atmosphere.
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