The greenhouse effect - is it worth it to fear its consequences?

Increasingly, the media can be found articles that predict the most terrible consequences, the main "culprit" of which is the greenhouse effect. But is this phenomenon really dangerous?

What is the greenhouse effect?

In order to accurately imagine the mechanism of this phenomenon, it is sufficient to conduct a simple experiment. It will require a small pot of plant and a glass dish or jar that completely covers it. The pot should be placed in a sunlit area and covered with a suitable object from above. After a while you will notice how the traces of steam form on the walls of the glassware, and if you remove it, you can feel that the temperature inside it is slightly higher than in all the other room. This is the greenhouse effect. Although the scientific definition looks somewhat different. So, the greenhouse effect is the negative ecological consequences of the life activity of human organisms.

In part this definition is correct, but only in part. Adherents of it sweep aside other information that the greenhouse effect, the reasons of which will be considered below, also serves as a regulator of the temperature comfortable for most organisms. Therefore, it is necessary to understand the origin of the phenomenon under consideration.

Greenhouse effect: causes are true and false

The reason for this phenomenon for a long time was considered the activity of living organisms, mostly plants. Scientists explained that when the planet was heated by solar energy, some of it was absorbed, and the rest was reflected from the surface. But the presence of an atmosphere around the Earth in a certain way delayed the feedback, raising the temperature to a comfortable for the development of hydrocarbon life form. Under such conditions, plants could perform the process of photosynthesis, enriching the lower layer of the atmosphere with oxygen.

But today the greenhouse effect is considered by many to be exclusively a negative phenomenon, connected only with the industrial life activity of a person. They argue that because of anthropomorphic actions, the amount of carbon dioxide that circulates in the air greatly exceeds the consumption possible for photosynthesis. This is also affected by the release of other gases that raise the temperature, such as methane or nitrous oxide. A lot is also contributed by the developing industry, constant forest fires, the destruction of the ozone layer around the planet.

The exceptionally negative reaction with which the greenhouse effect is associated with the second approach, allows them to predict many negative consequences for the Earth, from raising the level of ultraviolet radiation and ending with the second world flood. At the same time, it is tactfully silent about the fact that the temperature on the surface of the planet has a wavy history, and now a jump in the rise is being set.

Consequences of the greenhouse effect

The main and positive aspect of it is the maintenance of temperature on the Earth's surface in the range that allows all living beings to develop.

But there are more negative moments. This is the melting of permafrost, a decrease in the reflecting surface, a change in climatic zones, and much more. However, as recent studies of what a greenhouse effect is and what its impact on the environment show, most of these effects have slightly different sides.

Thus, the slowing of currents, incl. The Gulf Stream, the change of climatic zones, the melting of glaciers can be provoked not only by the greenhouse effect. According to the latest data of scientists, in the consequences often attributed to the phenomenon under consideration, the motion of tectonic plates is also to blame , and the wave-like change in global temperature, as well as the gradual displacement of the Earth's magnetic poles. Therefore, before giving a negative assessment of the greenhouse effect, you should carefully study all the changes that occur on the planet, separating the true from the false.