READ THE NOTES AND CREDITS GREENHOUSE GASES If you've heard of people talking about global warming, then you probably know what a greenhouse gas is. It's a gas that traps heat in Earth's atmosphere. But you're probably wondering how greenhouse gases work. They work because their molecules resonate and vibrate, and are able to use electromagnetic waves and fields to push photons around. Since the photons keep bouncing off and all around the gases, it becomes harder for them to escape the atmosphere, since the pathway out is long and resembles Brownian motion. The top 5 greenhouse gases are carbon dioxide, methane, nitrous oxide, ozone, and water vapour (yep, H2O is a greenhouse gas). The 3 most significant and powerful ones are carbon dioxide, nitrous oxide, and methane. Nitrous oxide is amazingly powerful, but it's pretty rare, so it doesn't have a great effect. However, it still contributes to global warming. Methane is less powerful but more common, so it has a greater effect (it contributes to 1/4 of global warming). Carbon dioxide is the least powerful of those 3 but there is much more of it, and we are producing a lot more.
INSTRUCTIONS AND DESCRIPTION This is an incomplete Greenhouse Gas Simulator! I'm adding settings, but if you would like to, you can remix it and add it! And please tell me if I am allowed to add it to this project and give credit. The fast particles moving around are photons. They yellow ones are of visible light and the red ones of infrared radiation. When the earth absorbs visible light, it radiates some back as infrared, which the greenhouse gases trap. How do greenhouse gases trap heat? Well, think of bonds as springs. When photons hit them, they absorb the energy and stretch (think -- you need to put energy into a spring to stretch it). Then it re-emits the infrared photon in a random direction and loses the energy from the photon, contracting again. This causes an oscillation when photons are around, which is why some molecules jiggle around when hit by infrared. You'll notice that the oxygen and nitrogen molecules are not affected at all. It's not because their double or triple bonds between the atoms cannot stretch. It's just that they don't absorb and emit the energy because their bonds are different. They have different energies and electron concentration, and thus they cannot absorb the photons. Did you know that greenhouse gases also keep heat out of the Earth? They only trap heat because the photons have to travel much further to escape because they keep on getting absorbed and re-emitted by all the greenhouse gases in the air. And the more GHGs, the more trapping. Ozone absorbs and re-emits UV light which is how it blocks sikar radiation. However, if the earth radiated UV light it would trap the ultraviolet and roast the Earth. Thanks for reading and enjoy.
