how do greenhouse gases trap heat in the atmosphere?
In: Physics
The Earth gets almost all its energy from the Sun. Sunlight reaches the Earth. About a third of it actually gets reflected back out to space and doesn’t do anything and some of it gets absorbed by stuff up in the atmosphere but the *rest* of it actually reaches Earth’s surface to provide us with that sweet heat energy.
At the same time, the Earth starts releasing energy back out to space.
When there is *less* greenhouse gases, more of that energy can freely leave and not bother us. But as greenhouse gases go *up*, it traps that energy, not letting it go anywhere. Since it can’t go… it just stays on our planet to keep heating up. And since we still have sunlight heating us, too, it means that the temperature grows.
It’s called the “greenhouse effect” because it’s the same idea of a regular greenhouse – energy enters but can’t escape.
Latest Answers