THE GREENHOUSE
EFFECT
by
Antonio C. Antonio
April 26,
2014
We are
more familiar with a backyard “green house”; a lot of homes have this. The principle involved in the construction of
a home-based “green house” is to (1) protect our ornamental and decorative
plants from direct sunlight and (2) trap moisture emitted by plants inside the
“green house”. Both measures also intend
to maintain a cool and ideal temperature inside the “green house” to promote
plant growth and health.
Planet
earth can also build a “green house” made of atmospheric gases. This is commonly called the “greenhouse
effect”. The “greenhouse effect” is a
process by which thermal radiation from the surface of the earth by atmospheric
greenhouse gases and return it back to earth.
This results to high year-round temperature averages on earth. Please see the accompanying image in this
article which illustrates the action/process involved in the “greenhouse
effect”.
“The mechanism is named after the effect of
solar radiation passing through glass and warming a greenhouse, but the way it
retains heat is fundamentally different as a greenhouse works by reducing
airflow, isolating the warm air inside the structure so that heat is not lost
by convection. If an ideal thermally
conductive blackbody was the same
distance from the Sun as the Earth is, it would have a temperature of about 5.3
°C. However, since the Earth reflects
about 30% of the incoming
sunlight, this idealized planet's effective temperature (the temperature of a blackbody that
would emit the same amount of radiation) would be about −18 °C. The surface temperature of this
hypothetical planet is 33 °C below Earth's actual surface temperature of
approximately 14 °C. The mechanism that
produces this difference between the actual surface temperature and the
effective temperature is due to the atmosphere and is known as the greenhouse
effect. Earth’s natural greenhouse
effect makes life as we know it possible. However, human activities, primarily
the burning of fossil fuels and clearing of forests, have intensified the
natural greenhouse effect, causing global warming.” (Wikipedia)
The
foregoing reading materials plus the references I cited below should give us a
clear idea that the “greenhouse effect” is largely the result of anthropogenic
(meaning: manmade) activities. Man’s
technology and use of technology is mainly to blame for the “greenhouse effect”
which results to “global warming”. On
the other hand, global warming is largely to blame for weather systems like
unusually strong typhoons like “Yolanda.”
If we are to effectively address rising global temperature, it is
therefore important for us to equally focus our attention, not only on global
warming and deforestation but also, on the greenhouse effect.
Just my
little thoughts…
REFERENCES:
·
The Greenhouse Effect (http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/shared/spl/hi/sci_nat/04/climate_change/html/greenhouse.stm)
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