How Does The Greenhouse Effect Work?

EP, let me confirm from the outset that I know very little on this subject, so, despite our disagreements in the past, I’m *not* contradicting you here – just trying to understand. I’m also confused by the part you highlighted. If the planet received 240 W/m^2 of energy from the Sun, how can the atmosphere “radiate 240 W/m^2 into space, [and] also radiate 240 W/m^2 back toward the ground”? The law of conservation of energy states that energy can not be created or destroyed, but, according to your description, the atmosphere is receiving 240 W/m^2, but reradiating a total of 480 W/m^2. At first glance this seems to be impossible. What am I missing that makes this work? :::EDIT::: Oh, so the “radiate 240 W/m^2 into space, [and] also radiate 240 W/m^2 back toward the ground” quote is the position *after* equilibrium is reached? So it’s the situation at the end point, not the starting point?

I am certainly not a physics major, but that sounds pretty good except for one point. When you refer to the ground only being able to radiate heat in one direction, particularly the ocean. And while the radiative portion of earths energy budget is intuitive from a physics perspective, there is a significant amount of energy unaccounted for by convection, evaporation and condensation. This portion of earths climate that is generally written off as weather is chaotic and difficult to model, but eventually must have some portion of the 240 watts per square meter assigned to it, if we are to fully understand earths energy budget.

Simple answer. The greenhouse effect is a term used to describe the effects of the building up of carbon dioxide in the earths atmosphere which causes the retention of heat thereby warming the ambient temperature.

well this is how i understand it... The greenhouse effect is the rise in temperature that the Earth experiences because certain gases in the atmosphere (water vapor, carbon dioxide, nitrous oxide, and methane, for example) trap energy from the sun. Without these gases, heat would escape back into space and Earth’s average temperature would be about 60ºF colder. Because of how they warm our world, these gases are referred to as greenhouse gases.

Simply, the greenhouse gases in the air trap heat. The suns thermal energy "heat" is normally reflected off the earth's surface and allowed to escape through the atmosphere. The atmosphere normally holds some heat in to regulate temps. However greenhouse gases trap this excess heat. When this is combined with melting of glacier packs at the poles (the snow reflects the thermal energy, but with less snow there is less reflection) the heat builds and the average global temps rise.

There is a big HOLE in the Greenhouse THEORY. Actually, the hole is in the O-Zone, it grows and shrinks almost daily. In a True greenhouse, heat is trapped and cannot escape, this is especially useful when growing plants in the winter...However, it has nothing to do with the earth's climate..Why..The HOLE...If you put a hole in a greenhouse that can expand and contracted to let gasses out, the greenhouse itself is useless.

The gasses or whatever the environmentalists, and Nobel sellers say , which pokes the ozone, emanates itself from the earth,for the layman where must it go? that is the zillion dollar question.

All this and the answers sound like scientist talking after they smoked the stuff they got out the greenhouse