Climate Change Overview
The Greenhouse Effect and Its Consequences
The greenhouse effect is a natural mechanism that retains the heat emitted from the Earth’s surface. The Earth’s average temperature is at the moment around 14 degrees Celsius (57 degrees Fahrenheit). If the natural greenhouse effect did not exist, the average temperature would be around minus 19 degrees Celsius (minus 2 degrees Fahrenheit). The greenhouse effect is caused by a range of different gases in the Earth’s atmosphere. Water vapor makes the most significant contribution to the greenhouse effect, followed by CO2 (carbon dioxide). The atmospheric content of greenhouse gases — in particular CO2 — and the consequences for the…
