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Is greenhouse effect beneficial and/or harmful?

Understanding the greenhouse effect?

  • If greenhouse gases really raise temperature, (and water is the most abundant greenhouse gas and accounts for most of the greenhouse effect on earth) then how come deserts aren't considerably colder than other places on the planet in the same climate zone? Also, how come in tropical rainforests, where water vapor is most prevelent, the high temperatures rarely get higher than 92-94 degrees F. I live in Louisiana, and temperatures during the summer get hotter than this very often. Shouldn't temperatures be considerably higher in the rainforest since water vapor is most abundant and rainforests exist on or near the equator? Could it be that greenhouse gases are misunderstood? Possibly they are just insulators and not amplifiers of heat for our planet? This could explain why deserts have the greatest temperature ranges on the planet and rainforests have the smallest temperature ranges.

  • Answer:

    The major greenhouse gas is water vapour, not water. The greenhouse gases are distributed evenly, not just over deserts. Greenhouse gases are effective in the upper atmosphere, not near rainforests. Yes green house gases are misunderstood. In the US a greenhouse is called a glasshouse. Solar radiation (sunshine) has visible light, as well as below red and above violet radiation. Below red is the heating part. Above violet causes sunburn. The below red (known as "infrared") part of sunshine comes straight through the atmosphere and warms the ground. The ground warms the air. But the warm ground also radiates heat back upwards. However the atmosphere high up doesn't let this heat get out - it can come in, but not escape - thus the world stays warm. The gas that allows solar radiation IN, but not earthly radiation OUT, is the greenhouse gas. But the most prominent greenhouse gas is water vapour, not CO2. And the atmosphere began warming before cars and planes and power stations were invented. So there is global warming, but it has nothing to do with CO2 emissions

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If you think greenhouse gas in earth are the major to raise the temperature of earth..i will disagree In my thinking nothing in universe is constant or confined to a particular location,all heaven bodies of universe changing their location with time. So if you follow many probability universe theory you must assume the distance between earth to its nearest star may be decreasing with changing time that impact on earth climatic change.

Samir M ♞

Ugh?

Julie Kahrs

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