Solar Panels Greenhouse Effect
I may sound stupid but , what is global warming?
Global warming is the increase in the average temperature of the Earth’s near-surface air and oceans since the mid-20th century and its projected continuation. Global surface temperature increased 0.74 ± 0.18 °C (1.33 ± 0.32 °F) during the last century.[1][A] The Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change ( IPCC ) concludes that increasing greenhouse gas concentrations resulting from human activity such as fossil fuel burning and deforestation are responsible for most of the observed temperature increase since the middle of the 20th century.[1] The IPCC also concludes that natural phenomena such as solar variation and volcanoes produced most of the warming from pre-industrial times to 1950 and had a small cooling effect afterward.[2][3] These basic conclusions have been endorsed by more than 40 scientific societies and academies of science,[B] including all of the national academies of science of the major industrialized countries.[4]
Throughout Earth’s history there have been many cycles of warming and cooling. The main factors have been due to changes in the amount of heat reaching us from the Sun (usually due to the continual changing of the position of Earths orbit), the position of the continents due to plate tectonics (which affects ocean circulation and heat distribution), and the amount of “greenhouse” gasses in the atmosphere.
Greenhouse gasses, such as carbon dioxide, water vapour and methane help trap heat from the Sun by absorbing the radiation and re-emitting it at longer wavelengths. This “greenhouse effect” is vital to our survival as it keeps the Earth about 30 degrees warmer than it would be, preventing a global freeze.
Current scientific research has shown that there has been a significant increase in global temperatures over the past few decades, which seems to be related to a large increase in the greenhouse gas, Carbon Dioxide, over a similar short timescale. This increase in carbon dioxide is a direct result of our burning coal, oil and large scale clearance of forests. The problem with this is that the increase in carbon dioxide is much, much faster than the Earth’s systems are able to cope with. In the past such changes have been very slow (i.e. 1000′s of years), so that animals, plants, the oceans and atmosphere have had time to adjust. The worry is that we might be causing the World to warm up faster than we can adjust to.
The Greenhouse Effect and Global Warming
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