If the greenhouse effect has again been currently in the news, it is probably because it is once again being blamed for causing global warming. Stronger hurricanes, periods of extreme weather, heat waves, the frequency of the El Nino phenomenon, these are all attributed to global warming. But how does the greenhouse figure in all these? What is the greenhouse effect? The greenhouse effect is the ability ofour planet's atmosphere to trap and contain heat. This heat is sourced from the sun and is reflected back towards the atmosphere. Certain gases are responsible for this entrapment and they include carbon dioxide, nitrous oxide, methane, fluorinated compounds and water vapor. Other man-made chemicals are also capable of retaining heat within the atmosphere In itself, the greenhouse effect is not essentially evil. In fact, it is this very phenomenon that has produced life on earth as we know it. Think of the greenhous effect as a natural thermal blanketing for our planet, maintaining a surface temperature that is just right to encourage organisms to grow and survive. Without this blanketing, the earth's climate would be too cold- about 59F lower than the average for our planet to be able to sustain life successfully How does the greenhouse effect contribute to giobal warming? For more than 4 billion years, the greenhouse effect has kept our planet's temperature at a friendly l. Gases found in the atmosphere act to trap heat and keep our planet insulated, able to sustain itself. Problems only began tc arise when scientists noticed that certain practices and human activities contribute to the modification ofthis process When the Industrial Revolution began, we also devised many ways of using fossil fuel for oil, coal and gas. The only way to utilize these fuels was by buming. As industrialization continued to expand, so did the practice of fossil fuel burning thereby releasing gases into the atmosphere, The only problem was that these gases had nowhere else to go and have continued to build up over the years 6 By building ups they cause the atmosphere to become more efficient in trapping heat, causing climates to turn warmer. This unnatural or man-made result is referred to as global warming 7 How global warming affects us? We have been experiencing the effects of global warming for the past years and most of these are felt through changes in the climate. However, it's important to note that climate change is brought about by other factors and not just as an indirect result of the greenhouse effect. Some of these rs include changes in the circulation of the oceans, changes in our planet's orbit and even changes in the intensity of the sun itself.