Have you ever wondered why living
organisms, including humans, do not burn up on the surface of the Earth or
freeze to death? The answer is that the surface of the Earth has been designed
to maintain a certain range of temperature to prevent neither of the two
extreme conditions from happening, technically speaking.
The main source of energy for the
Earth is the sun. When the sun hits the Earth, the Earth absorbs some of the light
and releases some back into space. What is left on Earth is turned into heat
and trapped by the atmosphere. It is like when you are feeling cold and you
wrap yourself up in a blanket to get some warmth. There are gases in the
atmosphere which trap the heat. These gases are called greenhouse gases.
Examples of greenhouse gases are water vapor, carbon dioxide etc. What
maintains the surface temperature range is the balance between the amount of
light (infrared) absorbed and the amount of light released back into space. The
average temperature for Earth’s surface is 15°C
With this arrangement living and
nonliving things sustain themselves. It is with this arrangement that water for
example remains liquid.
What I have said so far is about the
external factor. What really keeps you warm on Earth, as a warm-blooded
organism is something internal. Through the processing of the food in your body,
you get your body warmth or body temperature of about 98.0 F or about 34°C. Note
that the food that you eat to keep yourself warm is inextricably linked with the
atmospheric temperature- plant and photosynthesis comes to mind.
Greenhouse gases can be good guys as
well as bad guys. They are good guys in keeping the surface of the Earth warm
for life forms, but they become bad guys when they make the Earth too warm
causing climate change.
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