Exactly what is happening to cause Global Warming?

Question

I know that Carbon Dioxide released causes it, but what EXACTLY is happening up the sky with the atmoshere to warm the planet? And don't even respond if you are going to say "Global Warming isn't real"

Answer 1

Global warming is caused by something commonly referred to as the 'greenhouse effect'. In short this occurs because greenhouse gases trap heat within Earth's atmosphere causing it to warm up. The more greenhouse gases the more it warms.

Here's a more detailed explanation...

Virtually all the atmosphere is made up of just three gases - nitrogen, oxygen and argon; thgether these account for more than 99.9% of the atmosphere. There are many other gases as well that exist in small quantities.

Many of the gases, including the three primary ones, are elements - they're composed solely of atoms. The greenhouse gases are molecules (several atoms in a bunch), they're considerably larger than atoms. The main greenhouse gases are carbon dioxide, methane and nitrous oxide. These all occur naturally but human activities are increasing the levels of them.

There are also greenhouse gases that are entirely manmade. You've probably heard of CFC's (chloroflourocarbons), these are one group of manmade gases. There's also HFC's (hydroflourocarbons) and HCFC's (hydrochloroflourocarbons). These are far more damaging than the 'normal' greenhouses gases because they have a far greater Global Warming Potential - up to 31,500 times that of carbon dioixide. These gases are also responsible for the depletion of the ozone layer and have now been banned, however, they still exisit in the atmosphere.

The atmosphere surrounds our planet. From our perspective on the Earth's surface it appears that we have a thick atmosphere but viewed from space it's a very thin layer of gases.

OK, so that's the basics of the atmosphere. Next we need to look at the sun and how it heats the planet.

The sunlight and heat we receive from the sun is what we often refer to as sunrays, they're actually waves of solar radiation; these waves have a very short wavelength and pass easily through our atmosphere. They're most noticable on a clear day when the sun is shining and you can feel the heat on exposed skin.

All this heat is absorbed by Earth and when the ambient temperature drops (at night for example) the heat is released from the Earth, rather like a giant storage heater. This heat is in the form of thermal radiation which has a longer wavelength than solar radiation. This longer wavelength radiation can easily pass through the atoms in the atmosphere but the larger molecules get in it's way and it becomes trapped.

The more of these molecules (greenhouse gases) there are the more heat becomes trapped in our atmosphere.

One important factor to take account of is water vapour, this is a naturally occurring greenhouse gas and the levels of it vary enormously - anywhere between 0 and 4% of the atmosphere. By comparison to the other greenhouse gases it is extremely ineffective but because there's so much of it (comparatively) it has a significant role to play in natural global warming.

Answer 2

You don't KNOW carbon dioxide causes it. You have been led to believe carbon dioxide causes it. The whole carbon dioxide bit is only a theory. There is no scientific proof to confirm it and there is an equally valid theory that the increase in carbon dioxide is being caused by the warming.

The only scientific fact that is indisputable is that increased solar activity is causing a slight increase in global temperatures. Most of which we would hardly notice if we didn't have such sophisticated instrumentation to read it.

Mars is warming too. That is indisputable proof that it is not mankind that is causing it.

PEOPLE WITH A SOCILAIST AGENDA ARE LYING TO YOU. Stop believeing the lies. You are in no danger. Nothing anyone does will make any difference. The sky is not falling. You are probably young. You don't know that these people have been doing this sort of thing for over thirty years. They do it to affect political policies that hurt the American economy. That is the real goal.

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Answer 3

Global warming can be simply described by saying

When you leave your car closed up in the sun on a hot day, the light enters and distorts to a different wavelength as it passes through the windows and bounces off the inside. Because the wavelength has changed, it cannot pass back through the windows and just bounces around untill all the light energy is converted to heat energy, making your car really hot. The exact same principle applies to global warming except the windows are replaced with ghg, and the inside of your car is the planet earth. THe holes in the ozone contribute too. This would be like your car has more windows to let more sunlight in, but less ways to let it out.

Answer 4

well.. there a lot of things happening
1) co2 traps heat in. heat goes through our atmoshere hits the earth some of the heat is absorbed and the rest is to bonce back up and some will go out back into space, and some will bounce back down to earth. the problem is the co2 is getting thicker and thicker. so heat has a greater chance to bounce back down to earth instead of going back into space. wheres the proof? just look at venus and mercury. even though venus is twice as far away from the sun as mercury. venus has a high temp. why? b/c venus has a very thick co2 atmoshere. there are more reasons for global warming too. but u may be wondering, well clouds are thick. shouldnt they keep heat in? u may think that, but they are white in color. i will explain in the next paragraph why color is important.
2). ice. believe it or not. with ice being that its white it bonces all the light back into space. b/c white does nto abosorb any light what so ever. unlike black which ill talk about in a min. since the ice is melting, more land is showing to sun. since the land is not white and is brown or green. it is absorbing the light and will absorb the heat and heat the area around it. in a way. its a run away affect. more and more land shows. the hotter the area gets which melts more ice.

3. cities. they have dark roofs some even black lining, which is the worst! it absorbs all the colors and will always be the hottest. example. on a hot summer day u can walk on grass and its not that bad, but if u walk on the roof of your house. YIKES thats hot! reason being they are dark colors and its absorbing the heat and it is also giving the heat off to inside your house and surrounding areas. streets are also a great example. asphalt. its black! again heating the area around them. if u look at pictures of cities in infared u can see the cities streets are hotter than the grass area. but u dont need infared to know that. just put one foot on the street and one foot on the grass. lol

Answer 5

Are you sure you know what you "know"?

First off: Is global warming real? Depends on how you define it. Are temperatures higher? By all indications, yes, but warmth or heat is more accurately measured by the energy being put into a system. But let's accept that the temperature increases do mean the globe is getting "warmer".

Second, then, is determining the source or driver of this warming trend. Some will tell you that it is due to the greenhouse effect which is a well-known process defined and studied over the last two centuries. It is a vital process to keep temperatures in a tolerable range for most of life here on Earth. It is, however, a passive source of energy, in that it only reflects, or re-radiates the energy back to Earth; that is merely one of the reasons why it is currently impossible to measure the exact contribution of the greenhouse effect to global "warmth". The calculated amount of heat from this effect, then, is derived from models - that doesn't mean the greenhouse effect ISN'T responsible for the increase in global temperatures, it just means that it can't be "proven". On the other hand, the greenhouse effect IS responsible for at least some of the "warming" - it has to. If you accept the greenhouse effect as the REAL physical process that it is, then you have to accept that it is contributing to the current global "warmth".

Third, accepting the unproven premise that the greenhouse effect accounts for all global warming, we need to determine whether increased CO2 levels are the main cause of the enhanced greenhouse effect. Again, the greenhouse effect is real, but the gas that produces the greatest amount of this effect is water vapor. It's nice to see it is at least getting some mention on these forums, but it's obvious that everybody wants to focus on CO2, despite the reality that man is "artificially" pumping more H2O into the atmosphere than CO2 (anybody who wants to argue the stoichiometry of the combustion process, be my guest). But water vapor is too hard to figure out especially when you have to take out the great amount of heat given off when it condenses to form clouds - a process that is technically not part of the greenhouse effect yet still a contributor to the global heating picture. CO2 makes a better boogeyman than H2O - everybody likes water and CO2 is a waste product. The truth is that CO2 is second to water vapor and thus a MAJOR contributor to the greenhouse effect. And it is undeniable that increases in CO2 are real. However, we have never been shown the comparison of water vapor taken side by side with those measurements. Does it increase, decrease, or stay the same? Nonetheless, let's assume that water vapor in the atmosphere has decreased, stayed the same, or at the very least had a lower proportional increase when compared to CO2 (we have to make this assumption, otherwise the popular global warming argument does not "hold water" - har de har...groan...)

Finally, accepting that CO2 increases have led to global warming, is the primary source of this increase man-made. There is no doubt that natural processes account for the largest volume of CO2 in the atmosphere, but the argument is that the excess CO2 from man's agricultural, industrial, and transportation processes are the reason that the globe is "warming". There is also NO doubt that man-made CO2 contributes to the greenhouse effect and ultimately an increase in "warmth". (Additionally, man-made processes to global cooling, but let's not go into that...) The question remains as to whether man-made CO2 accounts for most of the alleged increases in the greenhouse effect. The largest CO2 "sinks" of actively cycling CO2 are the oceans and other bodies of water - that is undisputed earth science. Accepting this along with the original premise that the Earth is warmer, AND ADDING the factual process of CO2 solubility, then as a NATURAL PROCESS, the amount of CO2 is increasing. What we are not seeing are any credible measurements that that take this into account. Most computer models presuppose that the CO2 increases are attributable to man - that all other CO2 sources are more or less constant. That man is responsible for MOST of the CO2 increases has NOT been proven.

What you have left is a house of cards built on one unproven premise over another. Does it prove that the ultimate premise - that man is responsible for global warming - is wrong? No. However, when you have people that not only tell you that it has been scientifically proven, but that we must all make radical sacrifices in our lives to change it, you can see how that might rankle enough folks to ask a few questions. As well meaning as some people are, by claiming something as scientific fact they might actually be building obstacles for finding the truth - EVEN IF THEIR HYPOTHESIS TURNS OUT TO BE THE RIGHT ONE!!!

Answer 6

The Carbon Dioxide will not let the heat back out of our atmosphere. It's like us wearing a coat in the summer.

Also my theory on global warming is not that there is too much CO2. We simply don't have enough plants and trees to breathe it all in since we cut way too many down and wildfires are also contributing. But no one seems to bring that up.

Answer 7

Carbon dioxide blocks infrared light. In visible light, it is just clear, like any gas. You can see right through it. But if your eyes could see infrared light and not visible light, then carbon dioxide would not be clear. It would look like a black cloud.

Now, how does that warm Earth? Visible sunlight comes in through the air and hits the ground. Some of the light is absorbed by the ground and that energy heats up the ground. Any hot thing glows, like a red hot iron glows red because it is hot. Even hotter things glow white and really, really hot things will actually glow blue. But things cooler than red hot will glow infrared. The ground is "infrared hot". So it emits energy in the form of infrared light. This light shines back up, and out into space, taking heat away from Earth, especially at night. But some things in the air can block it, preventing it from getting to space. Water vapor is one such thing. That is why humid or cloudy nights are warmer than dry, clear nights. Another thing is carbon dioxide. The carbon dioxide in the air prevents some of the infrared light emitted by the ground from escaping into space. If you add more carbon dioxide to the air, it will cause heat that would have formerly escaped to space to stay in the air.

Answer 8

Global warming is due to an increasing greenhouse effect. It has nothing to do with the degradation of the ozone layer and other such things. CO2 is a greenhouse gas. It absorbs radiation in a band centered roughly at 15 micrometers, near the most intense part of Earth's blackbody emission spectrum. When a molecule with an uneven distribution of electric charges is struck by radiation matching that molecules absorption frequency that molecule gains kinetic energy which we perceive as an increase in heat. This is the greenhouse effect. Adding more of a particular greenhouse gas to the atmosphere increases the amount of radiation absorbed at that greenhouse gases absorption frequencies causing more heat in the lower atmosphere.

Answer 9

Some gases ("greenhouse gases") let sunlight (visible light) in, which warms the Earth, and then block that heat (which is infrared light of a lower wavelength) from leaving. That's the "greenhouse effect", and it's a natural thing, mostly caused by water vapor.

Man is making excessive amounts of greenhouse gases, mostly by burning fossil fuels. That causes the delicate natural balance to go out of whack and the Earth warms. That's global warming.

It won't be a Hollywood style disaster. Gradually coastal areas will flood and agriculture will be damaged. But it will be very bad. Rich countries will cope, but it will take huge amounts of money. In poor countries many people will die of starvation, but not all of them.

Most scientists say, in 20-50 years. But we need to start right now to fix it, fixing it will take even longer than that.

More information here:

http://profend.com/global-warming/

Lots of numerical scientific data proving it real here:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Image:Climate_Change_Attribution.png

http://www.ipcc.ch/SPM2feb07.pdf

Answer 10

when carbon dioxide is released into the earth's atmosphere by vehicles, the burning of garbage, the release of fossil fuels etc.it thickens the thin layer causing the suns rays to be trapped in and thus global warming is caused.the suns rays that is trapped causes heat that damages humans skin and animals.