EVERYDAY SCIENCE

Detailed explanation-1: -Visible light reaches Earth’s surface while infrared light is trapped as heat. Which characteristic of Earth’s atmosphere causes this to happen? Ultraviolet & visible light from the sun reaches the earth’s surface and is converted to infrared waves (energy) that is trapped by CO2.

Detailed explanation-2: -Visible light reaches Earth’s surface while infrared light is trapped as heat.

Detailed explanation-3: -The greenhouse effect: some of the infrared radiation from the Sun passes through the atmosphere, but most is absorbed and re-emitted in all directions by greenhouse gas molecules and clouds. The effect of this is to warm the Earth’s surface and the lower atmosphere.

Detailed explanation-4: -Earth’s surface and atmosphere absorbs solar radiation and re-radiates it as longwave radiation. We feel this longwave radiation as heat. Energy radiated from Earth’s surface as heat, or infrared radiation, is absorbed and re-radiated by greenhouse gases, impeding the loss of heat from our atmosphere to space.

Detailed explanation-5: -But the glass, although transparent to visible light, acts as a partial barrier to the infrared light. So some of this infrared radiation, or heat, gets trapped inside. The result is that everything inside the greenhouse, including the air, becomes warmer.