Earth’s natural greenhouse effect makes life as we know it possible. although, human activities, mostly the burning of fossil fuels and clearing of forests, have intensified the natural greenhouse effect, causing global warming x
hope this helps ;)
Good ol' Wiki has an excellent explanation. I'd go there rather than use any answer here.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Greenhouse_...
"The greenhouse effect is a process by which thermal radiation from a planetary surface is absorbed by atmospheric greenhouse gases, and is re-radiated in all directions. Since part of this re-radiation is back towards the surface and the lower atmosphere, it results in an elevation of the average surface temperature above what it would be in the absence of the gases. ... "
(We just learned a brief definition couple days ago haha) greenhouse effect is when the suns warmth gets caught in the lower atmosphere and keeps the planet all warm cozy for us to live in.
The Sun emits mainly light rays. These rays are small so they can easily come through earth's atmosphere and glass. Once these light rays strike the earth a portion of the light energy is converted to heat energy. Heat energy has a longer wave length and thus can easily get stopped by glass. So the heat wave is trapped in the green house.
