Importance of the Greenhouse Effect

Serena Cuoghi
Title of Professor of Biology

During the last decades, much has been discussed and disseminated about climate change on the planet. A certain greenhouse effect is eventually mentioned among the incessant reports on the phenomenon that is transforming by complete the fragile balance of ecosystems, but how much importance does this greenhouse effect really have on said change?

Solar radiation, together with that emanated by the earth itself, have the capacity to generate heat, which in turn ends up favoring particular temperature conditions depending on the region of the planet and the greater or lesser incidence of lightning solar. The presence of an atmosphere around the earth offers in this sense a considerable reinforcement on this phenomenon. In addition to allowing us the existence of oxygen available for the respiration of the majority of living beings, the atmosphere is made up of a highly varied accumulation of gases, which, depending on their own molecular composition, can offer a certain degree of resistance against light waves and even electromagnetic.

This resistance offered by the gases in the atmosphere plays the most important role on the displacements of air masses, as well as in the increase of the total temperature of the earth, hence it was possible to demonstrate the fact that the greatest accumulation of gases that obstruct the natural flow of rays and heat dissipation, is considerably affecting the phenomenological dynamics terrestrial.

The higher the density of what are currently called greenhouse gases, the lower the dissipation of the heat accumulated in a certain region and even the entire planet, causing the temperature to increase progressively due to excess radiation absorbed by these same gases, with an also increasing reduction in the release of heat to the outside, hence all the concerns about the change change point towards a massive intervention on the increase in greenhouse gases, such as the mostly mentioned carbon dioxide carbon.

small scale benefits

The assembly of a greenhouse at home allows the development of a small-scale crop with great efficiency, with which can control multiple variables such as: 1) the humidity present in the environment, reducing the amount of irrigation necessary; 2) the temperature avoiding its extreme changes; 3) the amount of light that could in excess and in a very direct way deteriorate the species of plants that require shady environments and 4) insects and pathogens that can attack plants causing damage to the soil. crop. All this as a result of the observation processes that humanity has generated, regarding to the various phenomena that occur on a larger scale and constantly throughout the land.

Everything in excess is bad

The long-term consequences of the increase in the greenhouse effect are provided as potentially catastrophic, however, this phenomenon is not being experienced for the first time on our planet, it is in fact an event that has had a certain frequency cyclical and, certainly, always with important consequences on the species that could be present throughout that period.

Great mass extinctions of all types of species, with a greater proportion in those of larger dimensions, important geological changes resulting from abrupt atmospheric phenomena such as hurricanes, earthquakes and tsunamis, as well as long periods of glaciation have been part of the evidenced consequences of the various processes of climate change on the planet, therefore, it is not surprising the enormous concern that revolves around this issue and the need to spare no resources, to minimize the negative impact that human activity has generated, against the stability of the earth's temperature and atmospheric composition throughout the years last centuries.

Many alterations have already begun to manifest themselves and with them the ecological affectations in most ecosystems, especially those with lower temperatures, where report daily figures for the volume of thawed ice sheets, which in turn end up increasing the volume of the oceans, and with masses of water that due to alteration of their physicochemical characteristics begin to represent a danger to its own inhabitants, as just some of the direct consequences in the increase in the greenhouse effect that we have produced.

References

Caballero, M., Lozano, S., & Ortega, B. (2007). Greenhouse effect, global warming and climate change: a perspective from the earth sciences. University digital magazine, 8(10), 1-12. Mexico.

Martinez, J. & Fernandez, A. (2004). Climate change: a vision from nMexico. National Institute of Ecology. Mexico.