Greenhouse Gases and Their Impact on Environment

Greenhouse Gases

Greenhouse gases are gases that contribute to the greenhouse effect when present in the atmosphere. Six greenhouse gases regulated by the Kyoto Protocol, as they emitted in significant quantities by human activities and thought to contribute to climate change—CO2, methane, nitrous oxide, hydrofluorocarbons, perfluorocarbons, and sulfur hexafluoride. Each gas, however, has a different global warming implication. Therefore, for simplicity, the mass of each gas emitted commonly translated into a carbon dioxide equivalent (CO2e) amount so that the total impact from all sources can be defined as a solitary figure.

Introduction

Since the late 1980s, increasing global scientific and political attention focused on the associated issues of global warming and global climate change. At the core, of these investigations and policy debates lie a small number of atmospheric gases, most of which are naturally occurring, that are responsible, for the maintenance of Earth's temperate, life-sustaining climate. These anthropogenic greenhouse gases inextricably linked to growth-oriented global economies, consumption patterns, and ways of life (at least in industrialized countries). Our inability to control their emission ultimately results in irreversible damage to our global ecosystems.

Background

Earth's atmosphere consists primarily of nitrogen (78 percent) and oxygen (21 percent), along with small amounts of a variety of other gases. Several of these gases—including water vapor, carbon dioxide, methane, nitrous oxide, and man-made chlorofluorocarbons (CFC-11 and CFC-12)—act to trap solar radiation in the lower regions of the Earth's atmosphere by absorbing infrared energy reflected from the planet's surface.

When present in equilibrium concentrations, these gases (with the exception of CFCs) help the Earth retain sufficient solar energy to keep its atmospheric temperature in a reasonably narrow, stable, and habitable range. Any lower concentrations would result in the loss of heat and cooling of the Earth's atmosphere; higher concentration of one or more of these gases would cause the atmosphere to retain more of the sun's radiant energy, thus warming not only the air but also the land and oceans. This would result in what has become known as global climate change.

Discussion

Naturally occurring greenhouse gases exist in equilibrium that maintains temperatures in a range that supports life on this planet. By analyzing gas samples found in ice cores and compounds bound in mixed sediments scientists have shown that the concentrations of various greenhouse gases have varied over Earth's history. This variation has contributed to the oscillation of our climate between warm and cold periods. The advance and retreat of glaciers shown to be, in part, a result of atmospheric warming is caused by increased concentrations of these gases, especially carbon dioxide.

However, with the coming of the Industrial Revolution and the attendant boom in human population beginning in the late 18th and early 19th centuries, man started to have a disproportional effect on the amounts of these gases collecting in Earth's atmosphere. The burning of coal to power steam engines began to liberate tons of additional carbon dioxide into the atmosphere. Later, the introduction of the internal combustion engine and petroleum-based fuels in the late 19th and ...