What is the Greenhouse Effect?
Many people consider the greenhouse effect to be a man-made phenomena and the main cause of global warming. This is, in fact, not true, and the greenhouse effect is a very natural and useful process. Without a greenhouse effect the earth would actually be inhabitable as it would cause the surface to be too cold to sustain life.
The greenhouse effect is in essence the warming of the air around us by the sun. Once the air has warmed up the heat tries to escape back into space, but due to layers of gas higher up in theatmosphere the heat cannot escape and is trapped near the surface. This is named the greenhouse effect due to it's similarity to a glass greenhouse, in which the glass takes the place of greenhouse gasses by allowing heat into the greenhouse but not allowing it to escape.
Water vapour is actually the most common of the greenhouse gasses with Carbon Dioxide coming second with around half the quantity of water. Next in order of quantity is Methane, followed by Ozone. Carbon Dioxide, or CO2, is the most commonly discussed greenhouse gas with Ozone running pretty closely behind, but as already mentioned, the perfectly naturallyoccurring water vapour is actually more numerous.
