How greenhouse gases warm Earth's climate change

Climate change is the ongoing rise in global average temperature and its wider effects on Earth's climate system, driven today by human activities, especially fossil fuel burning. The lessons answer how greenhouse gases warm Earth and help readers understand their role in climate change. They follow how heat moves through the climate system and escapes into space.

2 articles, 1 video, 1 book · about 2 hr 13 min of reading and viewing

The reading path

1. Read
   climate change · Wikipedia · 60+ min read

   Greenhouse gases let sunlight pass through the atmosphere to heat Earth's surface. The Earth radiates that energy as heat, and greenhouse gases absorb some of it, slowing heat's escape into space and warming the surface over time. Climate change has increased thermal energy in the global climate system, with only brief pauses since at least 1970. Over 90% of this extra energy has been stored in the ocean; the rest has heated the atmosphere, melted ice, and warmed the continents. Sulfate aerosols from burning fossil fuels with heavy sulfur concentrations like coal and bunker fuel are primarily blamed for global dimming, the gradual reduction in sunlight reaching Earth's surface observed from 1961 to 1990. Aerosols have declined globally since 1990 due to pollution controls, so they no longer mask greenhouse gas warming as much.

2. Read
   

   New study directly measures greenhouse effect at Earth's surface - Carbon Brief · Carbon Brief · 4 min read

   Joseph Fourier first suggested in the 1820s the term greenhouse effect. Physicist John Tyndall later extended the theory by identifying gases, such as carbon dioxide and methane.

3. Watch
   

   Greenhouse effect and greenhouse gases | High school biology | Khan Academy · YouTube · 7 min watch

   Carbon dioxide, methane and water vapor drive the greenhouse effect and keep Earth habitable. Excess concentrations of these gases, particularly from human activities, contribute to global warming.

4. Book
   

   Field Notes from a Catastrophe: Man, Nature, and Climate Change · Bookshop.org

   Field Notes from a Catastrophe, by Elizabeth Kolbert, documents scientific observations and political processes concerning the causes and effects of global climate change.

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