 Greenhouse effect and climate change: scientific basis and overviewP.C. Jain Renewable Energy, 1993, vol. 3, issue 4, 403-420 Abstract: Climate change due to ‘enhanced greenhouse effect’, arising as a result of human activities is considered a major global environmental threat to mankind. A review of the topic including the physics of the greenhouse effect is given. The Earth provides a unique life-supporting environment. Solar radiation has been responsible for maintaining the Earth's climatic system, the biosphere and fuelling the present technological age. Earth's temperature is a result of the equilibrium between the solar energy absorbed by the Earth and the long wave (infra-red) radiation from the Earth escaping into space. The natural greenhouse effect arises due to some of the trace gases, called the greenhouse gases, which are nearly transparent to solar radiation but strongly absorb the infra-red radiation emitted by the Earth. This results in a warming of the Earth by about 30°C and makes it habitable. Since industrialization, human activities have resulted in steadily increasing concentrations of the greenhouse gases—carbon dioxide, methane, nitrous oxide and chlorofluorocarbons—in the atmosphere, leading to fears of the ‘enhanced greenhouse effect’. Carbon dixoide alone contributes roughly two-thirds to the ‘enhanced greenhouse effect’. Date: 1993 Downloads: (external link) Related works: Export reference: BibTeX RIS (EndNote, ProCite, RefMan) HTML/Text Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:eee:renene:v:3:y:1993:i:4:p:403-420 DOI: 10.1016/0960-1481(93)90108-S Access Statistics for this article Renewable Energy is currently edited by Soteris A. Kalogirou and Paul Christodoulides More articles in Renewable Energy from Elsevier |
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