what would earth be like if the greenhouse effect did not exist?

Question

what is the original source of heat that is trapped by the greenhouse effect?

Answer 1

1) Cold and Al Gore free. WooHoo!!
2) Global Warming has occured naturally in our planet's history, with and without humans. CO2 is a green house gas, and all living animalia exhale CO2. Methane is also a greenhouse gas and when animalia fart, methane is expunged. It takes hundreds of thousands of years, but the Earth's climate will change, whether we do anything or not. The global warming alarmist are all wrong when they assert that cars and factories are doing all this. They point to the glacial record as proof of their "truths." But if one examines the glacial record, you will see that glaciers shrink and reform all the time over the span of a few years.

Answer 2

Consider the fact that one can find snowcapped mountains in the Andes, just a few degrees from the Equator

http://www.traveljournals.net/pictures/6076.html

where, obviously, the sea level temperature is not going to be particularly frosty. The difference between the temperature one experiences at high elevations and that at low is due to the difference in the amount of greenhouse gas heating; at higher elevations, less of the atmosphere is overhead, reducing the amount of greenhouse heating.

If we would be seeing freezing cold temperatures near the equator, courtesy merely of a reduction in the effectiveness of the greenhouse effect in this completely unreal scenario, one should be able to easy see that the rest of the planet wouldn't be doing any better. No, we wouldn't do just fine. With global, subfreezing temperatures in place, the glaciers would advance, and nothing would grow, even in those locations fortunate enough to not end up under a few miles of glacial ice.

The good news is that there is no plausible scenario under which the greenhouse effect would vanish.

Answer 3

There are a couple of answers to your question that are germane. The first is that the equilibrium temperature of a body in space is governed by the Stefan-Boltzmann law. There is a term in this law identified normally with the Greek letter epsilon called the emissivity. This emissivity factor identifies how much incident radiation a body will absorb as well as how much it will radiate at a particular temperature. The greenhouse effect theory proposes that the constituents of the atmosphere around a planet alters the planet's emissivity factor. The second reference below provides the equilibrium temperature of a planet warmed by a star. It makes an assumption that both the star and the planet have an emissivity of 1, i.e., that both are perfect black bodies. If this assumption were true, then the equilibrium mean temperature of the planet would never change. However, if either the emissivity of the star or the planet changes, then the equilibrium temperature will change. The ratio of the star's emissivity to the planet's emissivity is the important factor for this effect. If the star's emissivity rises, then that ratio will increase and the planet will warm. If the planets emissivity rises, then the planet's equilibrium temperature will fall. Your question asks if the greenhouse effect can be "proven". The answer is yes. It is possible to measure the mean emissivity of a planet, although it is not trivial since it requires a fairly lengthy measurement. However, one needs to eliminate emissivity changes due to cloud cover and surface "color" changes (oil slicks, plankton blooms, large burned areas, etc.) in order to extract the change due to atmospheric constituency. Of perhaps greater importance is the question "can we scientifically prove that accessible changes in atmospheric carbon dioxide levels affect the temperature of the earth?" The answer to this question is also "yes". In fact, it is much easier to do this. The Vostok ice core data (see reference) shows an extended history of the temperature and atmospheric concentration of carbon dioxide for the earth. In this extended (450,000 year) historical record, there has never been an incidence where carbon dioxide levels have changed before a change in planetary temperatures. That is temperatures rise before CO2 levels rise and temperatures fall before CO2 levels fall. So, the Vostok ice core data provides sufficient information to show that accessible levels of atmospheric CO2 concentration has essentially no effect on earth's emissivity. That is, essentially no greenhouse effect can be attributed to atmospheric CO2 concentration. ------------------- I find it necessary to amend this to address the post by Thomas K below. His post is accurate, but somewhat misleading. If the specific heat of the atmosphere was all that was in play, then the temperature of the planet would increase to infinity. That is, the radiant energy flux from the sun is ongoing, and the specific heat of the planet would simply convert that to heat. The Stefan-Boltzmann law is the controlling factor for the temperature of the planet. Not the specific heat of the planet's constituents. Oh, no. More eye glazing ahead. Thomas K detected a debate, but really his response is more of a clarification as was mine. I would label it more of a conversation than a debate. Thomas K correctly identifies ice or snow covered ground as key components in regulating the emissivity of the earth. My abreviated list of oil slicks and plankton blooms implied but could have specifically stated snow and ice effects. Anyway, the original question centered on the Greenhouse effect, which is purely atmospheric and my answer still stands. The Greenhouse effect can be measured, albeit with some difficulty, and accessible atmospheric carbon dioxide concentration has no associated Greenhouse effect. The loss of ice and snow may very well be a "bad thing", as Thomas K puts it, but since the only proposed intervention is to regulate CO2 levels, which have no associated Greenhouse effect, there is nothing we can do about the situation except prepare for the effects.

Answer 4

The greenhouse effect is known as the process by which the emission of infrared radiation by an atmosphere warms a planet's surface.

Our main source of energy is the light we recieve from the Sun. Radiation leaving the Earth is either reflected solar energy or emitted thermal infrared radiation. The Earth reflects around 30% of solar energy, and radiates black body energy into space. In order to maintain thermal equilibrium this increases with temperature.

The greenhouse effect arises because the atmosphere is fairly transparent to the visible solar radiation which heats the surface of our planet but strongly absorbing at wavelengths of infra-red radiation emitted by the surface. So most photons of infra-red radiation emitted by the surface are simply absorbed by the atmosphere and do not escape directly into space.

Without this effect our planet would be very different to the one we know today with an average global temperature of minus nineteen degrees Celcius.

Answer 5

Most people don't know this but without global warming, we wouldn't survive. Our earth would be a frozen, barren place. The greenhouse effect is a natural process that has existed for millions of years. The problem is that we are burdening the greenhouse effect, mutating it so it harms us.

Answer 6

People saying the greenhouse effect doesn't exist and there would be no effect are just plain wrong and ignorant.

What you meant to say was global warming doesn't exist.

The greehouse effect is a natural phenomena and there is not one scientist who disputes it. Global warming is a different story.

The effect to answer the question would take the global mean temp from 288K to 255K or from about 60 F to 0 F

Answer 7

Without the greenhouse effect the average surface temperature of Earth would be around -40C. It would not be a nice place to be at all, and we would certainly not survive.

But you can have too much of a good thing.

Answer 8

The original source is the sun. Without this effect it would be like Mars.

Answer 9

The earth will be very cold at night due to lack of trapped heat in the atmosphere. Everyone will freeze to death.

Answer 10

EXACTLY as it is now..."Greenhouse effect" doesn't exist. It's merely a scary name politicians and environmentalist groups put on the normal cycle of the planet.