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Heat from the sun shines onto the Earth.

It passes through a blanket of gases in our atmosphere.

Some of the heat energy is reflected back into space.

Some of the heat energy is absorbed by the blanket of gases.

The ‘greenhouse’ gases are essential to life on Earth. Without them heat energy would escape back into space.

Earth would be a very chilly place with an average temperature of -18°C !

The gases work a bit like glass in a greenhouse to trap in warmth.

But the earth is getting warmer and warmer.

WHY?

The greenhouse gases help to keep the temperature of the earth in balance. This process is called the GREENHOUSE EFFECT.

Human activities are creating more greenhouse gases including carbon dioxide, CO2.

As we burn more fossil fuels, for example, the blanket of greenhouse gases becomes thicker.

More greenhouse gases in the atmosphere mean that more heat energy is absorbed.

We call this increase in the temperature of the earth‘global warming’.

What do you deduce from this graph?

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“Human activities over the last 100 years, particularly the burning of fossil fuels, have caused a rapid increase in carbon dioxide and other greenhouse gases in the atmosphere. Before the industrial age, these gases had remained at near stable concentrations for thousands of years.....

The rapid warming observed since the 1970s has occurred in a period when the increase in greenhouse gases has dominated over all other factors. ”

Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change, IPCC Fourth Assessment Report: Climate Change, 2007

“Models and observations show warming in the lower part of the atmosphere (the troposphere) and cooling higher up in the stratosphere....

If an increase in solar output had been responsible for the recent climate warming, both the troposphere and the stratosphere would have warmed... Such considerations increase confidence that human rather than natural factors were the dominant cause of the global warming observed over the last 50 years.”

Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change, IPCC Fourth Assessment Report: Climate Change, 2007

Eleven of the last twelve years have been the hottest since records started in 1858. Think about ways that you could reduce your carbon footprint and be part of the

climate-change solution!

Credit Adapted from a resource produced by CAFOD

Last updated Jan 2012