BIOLOGY 3 Lecture Notes - Lecture 13: East Los Angeles College, Commercial Fishing, Archaea
Document Summary
The greenhouse effect is the only thing that keeps earth habitable. Greenhouse gasses temporarily absorb heat coming from the land and water. As with a greenhouse, solar energy is the ultimate source of warming on. But it is actually the infrared radiation (ir),that is created by sunlight striking the land and water, that is reflected back by certain atmospheric gasses. Greenhouse gasses retain heat, they do not produce heat. The vast majority of gasses in the current atmosphere (like o2, ar and n2) play no role in the greenhouse effect- cant bend and stretch the bonds like. Radiative forcing- defined as the difference of radiant energy received by the earth and the energy radiated back to space. Water vapor has remained unchanged, but over the past 250 years increasing co2 and ch4 are responsible for most of the increase in ir absorption.
