The Importance Of Greenhouse Effect

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According to Wubbles and Edmonds (1991), climate is defined as the behaviour of the atmosphere which represents the overall daily weather. Earth’s climate changes from warm to cool and reverse again periodically (Hardy, 2003). Hardy (2003) explained that by receiving warmth from the Sun, Earth sustains its life and greatly impacted human civilization. This is known as “natural” greenhouse effect which increases the temperature and keeps Earth habitable. Greenhouse effect is a process where the solar radiation is absorbed by the Earth’s surface and some of the heat is trapped by the greenhouse gases in the atmosphere (Kandel, 1990). It plays a vital role in the Earth’s climate which means the temperature of the Earth is changing with the cycle…show more content…
The energy is reflected back toward space as infrared energy. During this process, infrared energy is reflected back toward the space by scattering. According to Columbia University (n.d.), the solar spectrum that strikes the atmosphere’s particle is trapped in the atmosphere in this process. Then, half of the radiation is scattered back to space and the other half is sent down to the earth surface (Columbia University, n.d.). The fraction of a planet’s incoming visible light that is reflected back to space is defined as albedo (Archer, 2007). Difference parts of the earth have different albedo. Cloud plays an important role in this process because it has a higher albedo. According to National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA) (1990), cloud reflects more shortwave radiation back to space than the Earth surface. This process is refers as cloud albedo forcing. Stratocumulus cloud reflects much of the incoming shortwave radiation but also reemit large amount of longwave radiation (NASA, 1990). The institution explains that, the cloud albedo of the stratocumulus cloud is larger than their cloud greenhouse forcing which resulting in a net cooling of the Earth. Meanwhile, high clouds such as cirrus clouds and cumulonimbus transmit most of the incoming shortwave radiation. However, they also trap some of the outgoing electromagnetic radiation from the earth surface. This process occurs because their cloud
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