Global Warming

Global warming is the increase in the average temperature of the earth. This is due to the increase in the amount of green house gases in the earth's atmosphere. Carbon dioxide is one of the green house gases that contributes to the present temperature of earth today. The degree of hotness that you feel right now is highly due to global warming or the green house effect.

Global warming operates due to the earth reaction to reflect radiation coming from the sun. The earth reflects the radiation to the atmosphere and into space. This is the mechanism where the earth can maintain its temperature. The amount of green house gases present in the atmosphere has a great impact on the efficiency of earth to reflect back this radiation. What happens is that, the green house gases like carbon dioxide traps the sun radiations within the earth making it difficult for the radiation to escape into space. The radiation accumulates inside the earth's atmosphere causing an inefficiency in the dissipation of heat. This consequently results to the increase in the average temperature of earth today.

The air today is composed of 350ppm and other gases. Such low carbon dioxide concentration in the air has caused this temperature today. What will happen if it continues to rise? More and more carbon dioxide in the atmosphere means more and more green houses to trap the radiation and more and more radiation to cause heat accumulation, thus the advent of global warming.