Geography Notes

Greenhouse
A greenhouse is a structure with a roof and walls made of a transparent surface, usually
glass. A greenhouse uses sunlight to create a climate-controlled environment for
growing plants.

With a greenhouse, people can garden year-round. What’s more, people can grow
plants that need a longer growing season than the growing zone would usually allow.

A greenhouse works by converting light energy into heat. Light enters the greenhouse
and is trapped there by the glass and absorbed by the plants and other objects. This
causes the light energy to be converted to heat energy, which is trapped inside the
greenhouse. This provides the ideal environment for plants to thrive year-round.
Greenhouse Effect

Earth’s atmosphere works just like the glass walls of a greenhouse. It lets sunlight in
and then traps the heat radiated on the surface. This process makes the entire planet
hospitable for plant and animal life.

The greenhouse effect is a warming of Earth’s surface and atmosphere caused by the
presence of water vapour, carbon dioxide, methane, and certain other gases in the air.
Of those gases, known as greenhouse gases, water vapour has the largest effect.

Greenhouse gases let the sun’s light shine onto Earth’s surface, but they trap the heat
that reflects back up into the atmosphere. In this way, they act like the insulating glass
walls of a greenhouse.

Greenhouse gas emissions increased 70% between 1970 and 2004. Emissions of
carbon dioxide, the most important greenhouse gas, rose by about 80%. Most of the
carbon dioxide that people put into the atmosphere comes from burning fossil fuels such
as oil, coal, and natural gas. Cars, trucks, trains, and planes all burn fossil fuels. Many
electric power plants also burn fossil fuels. Another way people release carbon dioxide
into the atmosphere is by cutting down forests.

If global warming continues, the ice around the North and South Poles will melt and low-
lying countries such as the Maldives, the Netherlands and Bangladesh could be
flooded.