Greenhouse gases

Hiya everyone, Rachel here from The Green Team 094 HQ! I'm gonna share with you a little bit more about greenhouse gases, so everyone can understand.

What are greenhouse gases? Greenhouse gases trap heat in the atmosphere. As the amount of greenhouse gases in the air increases, so does the heat (this is known as the greenhouse effect). Stated by Wikipedia,

"Greenhouse gases are essential to maintaining the temperature of the Earth; without them the planet would be so cold as to be uninhabitable. However, an excess of greenhouse gases can raise the temperature of a planet to lethal levels, as on Venus where the 96.5% carbon dioxide (CO2) 93 bar atmosphere results in surface temperatures of about 467 °C (872 °F)."

And that's why there's Global Warming (GW).

The most abundant examples of greenhouse gases are:

1. Water Vapour (causes 36% to 70% of the greenhouse effect)
2. Carbon Dioxide (causes 9% to 26%)
3. Methane (causes 4% to 9%)
4. Ozone (causes 3% to 7%)
5. Nitrous Oxide (a.k.a. Laughing Gas)
6. CFCs (Chlorofluorocarbons)
   

As the amount of warming by CO² increases, so does the amount of water vapour. Which is why GW is accelerating so fast.

So why exactly is the amount of greenhouse gases in the air increasing?

The main carbon emission are from cars, powerplants, airplanes, deforestation and even buildings. Methane is derived from rice patties, bovine flatulence (a.k.a. *giggles* cow fart! :D) and fossil fuel production. Cited from Ecobridge,

"Nitrous oxide is naturally produced by oceans and rainforests. Man-made sources of nitrous oxide include nylon and nitric acid production, the use offertilisers in agriculture, cars with catalytic converters and the burning of organic matter. Nitrous oxide is broken down in the atmosphere by chemical reactions that involve sunlight."

The atmosphere contains about 750 billion tons of carbon, while 1020 billion tons are dissolved in the surface layers of the world's ocean. 

The whats, whys and hows of PERMAFROST

Permafrost is a solid structure of frozen soil, 2 200 feet deep in some areas of the artic and subartic regions. Permafrost is under 85% of Alaska's land surface and much of Canada, Scandinavia and Siberia and holds about 14% of the world's carbon! It has locked away many greenhouse gases for thousands of years, but now permafrost in some areas are beginning to give back carbon. This could result in the acceleration of the greenhouse effect.

Ultimately, the greenhouse effect, which causes Global Warming, is gonna kill us all if we don't try and reduce the emissions.