Greenhouse gases

Do anyone know anything on the green house gases? How are they causing global warming?


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I'm very energy conscious

I'm very energy conscious and 'green' if you will, a few things i've done to help the environment was to get [url=]double glazing[/url] for all my windows better weather sealing for doors, the expanding foam from the can I shot into any opening i found around behind the moldings of the windows and doors, the trim molding etc, you'd be amazed at how big some spaces were between the frame and sheet rock. Then have insulation put in the attic and basement or added to the old stuff.

I wanted to add a comment

I wanted to add a comment here. It's importat that you don't get confused with this: Greenhouse effect is good. But, like anything, it is good until certain point. Greenhouse effect gets the Earth an average temperature constant. That's one of the reasons why planets like Mars are believed by people not to have life like ours. There is no greenhouse effect there, so the temperature varies widely from 180K to 260K in a short time, which makes its surface not habitable (the organisms wouldn't stand this variation). Once I read that "the best way to make Mars habitable would be to inject synthetic greenhouse gases into its atmosphere".

Thanks for replying. I know much more about green house gases now.

Think this is it.

All molecules absorb light (electromagnetic radiation) at different wavelengths. Once a molecule has absorbed this energy it is said to be in an excited state. As molecules “prefer” to be in the ground or unexcited states, they will then emit this radiation back into the atmosphere.

Most of the light emitted form the sun is shorter than 4 micrometers (0.000004 meters) in wavelength. Light at this wavelength has no problem getting through the earths atmosphere as no gases really absorb light of this wavelength. If the earth’s surface simply bounced this light back into the atmosphere it would obviously be able to go back into space as the gases in the atmosphere still wouldn’t be able to absorb it. However this doesn’t happen, the surface of the earth absorbs this light and then reemits it at a longer wavelength of more than 4 micrometers. At this wavelength certain molecules will absorb the light. The ones that do are called green house gases.
A perfect example is carbon dioxide. So in short the carbon dioxide will let the light from the sun, at 4 micrometers, through the atmosphere. But when the light is reflected from the surface of the earth the carbon dioxide will absorb it (as the wavelength has been charge to longer than 4 micrometers).

So now we have a green house gas that has absorbed light and is in its excited state. It emits this light back out to return to its ground state. Some of the reemitted light will go in to space and some will go back towards the earth. Therefore not all the light/ heat energy that entered the atmosphere has managed to escape and so the earth is a little bit hotter.

Hope this helps a bit. Sorry it’s a bit long; I’m not very good at getting a point across.

Thanks for replying. Your information was very useful. Thanks.

WebElements: the periodic table on the WWW []
