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How Do Greenhouse Gases Actually Work ?

By

Sarah Jose

Mentor:

Samuel John

This is a 3 min and 9-sec video on how greenhouse gases actually work.

What protects us from the sun's harmful rays? The answer is the atmosphere. In the morning, the atmosphere blocks the sun's UV rays from entering the atmosphere and at night it doesn't allow the heat to escape the Earth.

We know that the electrical charges in the earth's atmosphere absorb the heat by passing electro-magnetic waves to push around.
Some of them don't have electrical charges. Instead, they have an even number of protons and electrons. Molecules like water and ozone have their negatively charged electrons so close to each other that lends them a lopsided that can help them to jiggle back and forth to absorb the sun's rays.

On the other hand, gases like Carbon dioxide and methane are not lopsided so we can say that they can't absorb any rays. But in reality they are not motionless. They bump into other molecules like about a billion times per second. Both carbon dioxide and methane spend their time shaking it like how water and ozone does to absorb rays.

These molecules keep the heat in the earth most of the time. It is just like a game of pinball. The rays will collide with the molecules at least once before going back to space.

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