Greenhouse Effect Essay

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What is greenhouse effect?

Greenhouse (GH), in the perspective of agriculture or farming, is a structure use for growing of fruits and vegetables out of season. In the greenhouse, sunlight enters the glass and it is absorb by the plants and soil while some reflected outside. This results to the increase in temperature inside the GH that favors growth of plants. The earth warms in similar manner that enables the earth to support life form.

Figure 1 shows the model of greenhouse effect (IPCC 2007). Naturally, the earth contains gases known as greenhouse gases (GHG). These gases gather in the earth’s atmosphere. When the sunlight enters the earth as ultraviolet (UV) rays, certain percentage of this pass through the atmosphere and absorbed by the earth’s surface, while some are reflected back by the earth itself and by the atmosphere. The earth also give-off energy in the form of infrared rays. Some of which would pass through the atmosphere, the atmosphere will absorb some that prevents escape of this heat to the earth and some reflects back to the earth. This phenomenon keeps the earth warm. Just like in the greenhouse, the atmosphere that contains the greenhouse gases act as glass that traps the heat.

Greenhouse gases could be natural or human-induced. The most abundant greenhouse gases present in the atmosphere are water vapor (H2O), carbon dioxide (CO2), methane (CH4), nitrous oxide (N2O), ozone (O3) and CFCs (Wikipedia, Greenhouse gas).

Observation shows that the

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