Diagram showing how the greenhouse effect works(below).

Background

The greenhouse effect, which causes global warming, is one of the more known naturally occurring phenomenon which cause environmental problems. The greenhouse effect, which is the trapping of the earth’s heat and preventing it from being released into space, causes the temperature on our planet to rise continuously. It involves the process in which infrared radiation released by our atmosphere warms our planet’s temperature.

However, the greenhouse effect alone cannot be designated a problem as we, humans, also depend on to survive as the Earth will become like the moon without the greenhouse effect, rising to boiling temperatures in the day and dropping to below freezing in the night, it is the increased effect

of the greenhouse effect, due to increased release of greenhouse gases into the atmosphere, that is the problem.

Greenhouse Gases

Of the many different greenhouse gases, one of the more abundant ones is carbon dioxide (CO2). Carbon dioxide is an extremely important greenhouse gas as it can absorb infrared strongly even while it transmits visible light. Currently, the carbon dioxide level in our atmosphere is already fairly high, yet it is continuously increasing, because it is produced by the burning of fossil fuels, and living or dead vegetation. On land, plants can convert carbon dioxide into oxygen via the process of photosynthesis, thus reducing the amount of carbon dioxide in our atmosphere. However, carbon dioxide is easily soluble in water; thus, oceans contain enormous amounts of carbon dioxide, which speeds up global warming. At the same time, the temperature increase makes carbon dioxide less soluble and further increases the speed of global warming.

The Earth also receives energy from the Sun in the form of solar radiation. Of the 100% received, about 30% is reflected by the Earth, while the other 70% is absorbed, thus warming our land, oceans, and atmosphere. In order for our Earth’s temperature to be stable, the absorbed solar radiation has to be radiated back out into space. Visible solar radiation mainly heats the surface of the Earth instead of the atmosphere, while the infrared radiation which escapes into space is emitted by the Earth’s upper atmosphere and not by the Earth’s surface. Most of the infrared photons which the surface emits are mainly absorbed back into the Earth’s atmosphere by greenhouse gases and clouds, thus preventing them from being released into space.

A major producer of methane due to cattle ranching(above). Photo courtesy of Robert Merkel

Another greenhouse gas is methane (CH4), which is the simplest alkane, which are chemical compounds consisting only of carbon and hydrogen. Due to its relative abundance and clean process of burning, methane is a highly attractive source of fuel. However, it can be very problematic trying to transport it from its source since it is a gas. Methane is also an important greenhouse gas like carbon dioxide as the impact caused by methane emissions is about 25 times that of carbon dioxide emissions of the same amount. In a span of 10 years, the effect of methane emission can be higher than the effect of carbon dioxide emission in a span of 100 years. Another source which magnifies the effect of the greenhouse effect is the sudden release of methane by methane hydrates. At the bottom of the ocean, methane hydrate is formed by methane and water. When sudden large quantities of methane are released, this could possibly cause rapid global warming events.

Analysis

However, even though the above information seems to show that the greenhouse effect is a problem causing effect, it is inaccurate to say so. The greenhouse effect on its own is not a problem; it is what keeps us warm and enables us to survive, as stated above. Due to human exploitation of the environment, it has become more of a bane than a boon. With the continuous rise in the world’s needs, many inventions have been created to satisfy them. However, what many of the consumers do not know, is that whatever they may require, could have caused a sharp increase in the world’s carbon dioxide or methane levels. Even a simple thing such as chopping down trees to build log cabins will lead to an increase in carbon dioxide levels when these plants can no longer convert carbon dioxide to oxygen for us. Although one might say that a single house built may not make much of a difference, can you imagine how many log cabins there are out there? Just thinking of it may put fear in the hearts of environmentalists, but it does not mean that this does not affect us as well. As we all know, this planet is shared by about 7 billion other people, thus, what affects a single person, will affect the others in the same way.