The Greenhouse Effect

Earth's atmosphere acts like the glass in a greenhouse which creates an effect on the planet that provides favourable conditions to allow for plants to grow. It also creates a climate that allows water to exist in a liquid state. Both of these factors are essential in sustaining life on the planet.

 Maintaining these conditions through the earth's atmosphere is known as the Greenhouse Effect. Without the greenhouse effect the average global temperature would be approximately 30 ̊C lower than its current state which would not provide favourable climatic conditions to support most of life on the planet. 

In order to create the desirable greenhouse effect to ensure the maintenance of life as we know it, the atmosphere must be well balanced with regards to the level of greenhouse gases it stores. Due to manmade activities since the industrial revolution, increases in greenhouse gases have led to too much energy being trapped in the atmosphere which has resulted in climate change. Gases such as Carbon Dioxide trap additional heat into the earth's climate system resulting  in increased global warming. 

Please visit the STA.ie (Science and Technology in Action) website to learn further about climate change and the greenhouse effect.Supplementary lesson kits are provided on the site.

Greenhouse Gases

The three most common types of greenhouse gases that affect climate change include:

• Carbon dioxide (CO2) can enter the atmosphere through human activities that involve the burning of fossil fuels (oil, natural gas, and coal). It is removed from the atmosphere and stored when it is absorbed by plants in a process called the carbon cycle. 

• Methane (CH4) is emitted during the production and transport of coal, natural gas, and oil. Methane emissions also come from livestock and other agricultural practices and by the decay of organic waste in landfills. While methane doesn't last as long in the atmosphere as carbon dioxide does, in the first 20 years of its release it is approximately 30 times more potent as a heat trapping gas than CO2, making it initially more devastating to the climate.

•  Nitrous oxide (N20) is emitted to the atmosphere through different agricultural and industrial practices, It can also be released during the combustion of fossil fuels and solid waste. 

The greenhouse gases we emit can stay in the atmosphere for decades, centuries or even millennia. Different gases last different durations of time in the atmosphere and have different levels of impacts on global warming, however they all contribute to the Greenhouse effect. It is therefore important that emissions are capped from all greenhouse gas sources as soon as possible if we are to reduce the impact and scale of damage caused by climate change.