Essay/Term paper: The greenhouse effect

Essay, term paper, research paper:  Society Term Papers

The Greenhouse Effect


This essay is going to describe what the greenhouse effect is and
what it does.It is also going to say what causes the greenhouse effect and the
consequences of it.

What is meant by the term the greenhouse effect is that the heat
from the sun comes into the Earth's atmosphere and cannot get out so becomes
trapped.It gets its name because this is very much like a greenhouse.This effect
occurs as the incoming short wave radiation is changed when it hits the Earth's
surface into long wave or infra-red radiation.Heat energy in this form is then
absorbed and stored in water vapour and carbon dioxide in the atmosphere.

Many different things cause the greenhouse effect. The amount of
carbon dioxide in the atmosphere is increased by 0.4 percent each year because
of the massive consumption of fossil fuels such as oil, coal, and natural gas.
Another contributing factor is the the amount of forest logged, every second of
the day the area of a football field in trees is cleared by either being logged
or burnt. Two other deadly greenhouse gasses which are entering the atmosphere
even faster than carbon dioxide are methane and chloroflourocarbons, although
they are not as damaging in the long run.

These increases are likely to affect worldwide temperatures
dramatically. In 100 years time the average temperature for most parts of the
world will increase from between 2C to 6C if greenhouse pollution continues at
its present rate. This temperature increase would drastically affect the growth
of many different crops and cause the polar ice caps to melt, thus increasing
sea levels to rise up to several metres. If this rise in sea level was to occur
many areas would be much more prone to flooding, and generally much deeper
floods than would be expected nowdays. This flooding would happen paricularly
around coastal regions worldwide, and also along many rivers that flow to or
from coastal inlets.

The greenhouse effect is very important because it leads to rising
water levels and temperatures which can have a large effect on the world's
climate.Changes in the climate can lead to significant changes in agricultural
industries.This can lead to good farmland becoming deserts, make it too hot for
some crops to grow or let pests and diseases thrive.As a result some countries
can suffer bad economic conditions and people will have to move.Some low lying
countries such as those on the Pacific islands or Holland could have a lot of
flooding and a lot of money would need to be spent building sea walls and levee
banks to stop flooding.For these reasons it is very important to carefully
manage the greenhouse effect by reducing the amount of carbon dioxide going into
the air and planting more trees.