How does water affect the greenhouse effect?

Answer 1

The great sheets of frozen ice and snow in the Arctic and Antarctic regions act to reflect some of the sun's heat back into space, thus keeping the planet cooler. If all this ice and snow disappears the rate of Earth's warming would increase.

Answer 2

Water vapor, as part of the water cycle, is one of the greenhouse gases in the natural greenhouse effect which keeps the earth at the right temperature for life. It has no part in the enhanced greenhouse effect, largely caused by carbon dioxide and methane, that is causing global warming.

Answer 3

Greenhouse gases tend to trap the heat radiated from earth's surface. Some gases do this extremely well, like water vapor, methane, and nitrous oxide. Carbon dioxide is a much weaker greenhouse gas, but is becoming much more abundant as humans liberate enormous amounts of it each year.

Water vapor also reflects solar radiation, and tends to be self regulating.

Answer 4

Greenhouse gases are the cause of Greenhouse effect.The greenhouse gases which include CO2, Methane etc. trap the heat in the Earth's atmosphere and don't allow it to escape. This has kept the earth's atmosphere warm enough for life for millions of years. The greenhouse effect is named so because of the fact that greenhouses around the globe are all made up of glass slabs which allow the sun's heat to enter the atmosphere inside but do not allow the infrared radiations by plants to escape.

Answer 5

It warms it. It raises the temperature. The greenhouse effect stops the sun's heat radiating back out into space.

The greenhouse effect is needed to maintain life on this planet. There is no negative effect from this effect. Without the greenhouse effect life would be impossible.

This should not be confused with the theory of the enhanced greenhouse effect. This is a far different issue and this theory maintains that increased levels of greenhouse gas could cause additional warming.

Answer 6

Greenhouse gases are gases that accumulate in the atmosphere and tend to trap solar energy as heat in the Earth's atmosphere.

This additional heat is having significant impacts on the Earth's surface. Glaciers around the world are melting at significantly accelerated rates and are not being replaced through the natural accumulation of snow and ice over winter. Dry areas are tending to become drier as the air can hold more moisture due to the increased heat. In contrast, areas with seasonal monsoons are seeing increased rainfall and more flooding and erosion, as the additional moisture in the air is then falling as precipitation.

Answer 7

The greenhouse effect increases the earth's surface temperature.

• The sun's energy warms the earth.
• Infrared heat rises from the surface of the earth into the atmosphere where it is trapped by greenhouse gases causing the greenhouse effect.
• The warm greenhouse gases in turn warm the surrounding atmosphere, and some of this heat goes back down to earth, where it adds more warmth to the earth's surface.