Flame — HabitableZone

Flame » in reply to re: It would be nice

Sigh.
Laurie Street — (archived)

Since you asked politely...

CO2 is not called a greenhouse gas because it is needed in greenhouses for plants to grow. It's called a greenhouse gas because it produces an effect similar to that of the glass in a greenhouse.

Yes, greenhouses function partly by simply physically trapping warmed air, but the greenhouse effect refers to the fact that radiation entering through the glass is of a certain range of wavelengths, but the heat radiated back by objects inside the greenhouse is of a different range. Much of this re-radiated energy is reflected back into the greenhouse by the glass, rather than passing through it.

CO2 in the atmosphere acts like the glass in a greenhouse. It reflects back re-radiated energy from the surface of the earth, rather than letting it pass back out into space. Expanding gas doesn't really enter into the picture.

This is all covered extensively in textbooks and on many web sites, such as this one from the American Institute of Physics.

I hope this helps.

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