The mechanism of global warming
Have you ever wondered where the heat that fuels global warming comes from? It all starts with the sun, our planet's primary source of energy, which is essential for life on Earth. The Earth absorbs this sunlight and then reflects it back as lower-energy infrared light. This invisible light plays a crucial role in global warming.
So, how does this process work? To understand it, we need to explore a bit of science. Due to a chemical property called “electronegativity,” carbon in CO2 has a positive electrical characteristic, while oxygen has a negative one. This causes CO2 molecules to vibrate when exposed to infrared light, which also has electrical characteristics.
When CO2 absorbs infrared light, it converts this energy into vibration. As a result, CO2 molecules trap heat by reflecting some of this energy back to the Earth.
CO2 isn't the only molecule that behaves this way. Other gases, such as methane (CH4), nitrous oxide (N2O), and chlorofluorocarbons (CF2Cl2), also absorb and trap heat in the atmosphere. These gases collectively cause the Earth's temperature to rise, driving the phenomenon we know as global warming.
