The Greenhouse_effect - in common language

All objects emit light that depends on their temperature (thermal radiation). This does not mean the visible light that comes from objects when sunlight falls on them or something like that, but light that depends on their temperature. The hotter the object, the more energetic the light. In ordinary objects this light is invisible, (is, for example, in the infrared region), but if the object is heated more, it begins to illuminate in the visible region (such as red-hot iron).

 

The sun warms the earth's surface and the earth radiates invisible light depending on its temperature in each place. In the atmosphere there are gases, for example greenhouse gases that "absorb" part of this light and then the molecules begin to rotate and vibrate more and with that it heats up. This is not completely different from what happens in a microwave oven. The microwave oven makes invisible light, which the oven produces in a certain way and the food in it absorbs this light, which causes the molecules in the food to rotate and with that it heats up.

 

When the earth radiates its invisible light, some of it would just go into space, but when more greenhouse gases are added, more of the heat is absorbed by the atmosphere and some of it is radiated back to the earth.

 

The problem is mainly fossil fuels, oil, gas and coal. When burned, the greenhouse gas carbon dioxide is formed. Someone may then ask if the man has not always been burning firewood and thereby producing carbon dioxide. Yes, that's right, but what happened then was that plants absorbed the carbon dioxide that was created by the fire, as well as water and sunlight, and produced from it oxygen and carbohydrates, in a process called photosynthesis, so this was a cycle in which the carbon dioxide formed by the fire of the firewood was occupied by other plants and the amount of carbon dioxide remained fairly stable in the atmosphere. When fossil fuels are burned, on the other hand, carbon is added to the carbon cycle and carbon dioxide in the atmosphere, causing increased greenhouse effect, whereas larger portion of the earth’s thermal radiation is absorbed by the atmosphere and some of it is radiated back to earth. It should be noted that part of the added carbon dioxide goes into the sea and causes ocean acidification.

 

Without the greenhouse effect it would not be habitable on earth, it would simply be too cold, but the increase in greenhouse gases could be causing rapid warming.