RA greenhouse gas (sometimes abbreviated GHG) is a gas in an atmosphere that absorbs and emits radiation within the thermal infrared range. This process is the fundamental cause of the greenhouse effect. The primary greenhouse gases in the Earth's atmosphere are water vapor, carbon dioxide, methane, nitrous oxide, and ozone. In the Solar System, the atmospheres of Venus, Mars, and Titan also contain gases that cause greenhouse effects. Greenhouse gases greatly affect the temperature of the Earth; without them, Earth's surface would average about 33°C colder than the present average of 14 °C (57 °F).
Since the beginning of the Industrial Revolution, the burning of fossil fuels has contributed to a 40% increase in the concentration of carbon dioxide in the atmosphere from 280 ppm to 397 ppm, despite the uptake of a large portion of the emissions by various natural "sinks" involved in the carbon cycle.[5][6] Anthropogenic carbon dioxide (CO2) emissions (i.e., emissions produced by human activities) come from combustion of carbon based fuels, principally wood, coal, oil, and natural gas.[7]
GEENHOUSE GASES
Greenhouse gases are those that can absorb and emit infrared radiation,[1] but not radiation in or near the visible spectrum. In order, the most abundant greenhouse gases in Earth's atmosphere are:
water vapour (H2O)
carbon dioxide (CO2)
methane (CH4)
nitrous oxide (N2O)
ozone (O3)
Atmospheric concentrations of greenhouse gases are determined by the balance between sources (emissions of the gas from human activities and natural systems) and sinks (the removal of the gas from the atmosphere by conversion to a different chemical compound).[8] The proportion of an emission remaining in the atmosphere after a specified time is the "Airborne fraction" (AF). More precisely, the annual AF is the ratio of the atmospheric increase in a given year to that year’s total emissions. For CO2 the AF over the last 50 years (1956–2006) has been increasing at 0.25 ±...