The GREENHOUSE Effect

• the warming of the earth’s climate caused by the trapping of radiant energy emitted from the sun and the earth’s surface by atmospheric gases including water vapour, CO2 and methane (and others)
• much of the energy in the infrared (heat) wavelengths is absorbed
• life depends on this trapping of radiant energy - without it the earth’s temperature would be ~33E C colder, frozen and lifeless
• now the term is generally used to refer to the increased warming effect related to increased concentrations of the ‘greenhouse gases’ caused by human activities