Green House Gases

Greenhouse gases are gases in an atmosphere that absorb and emit radiation within the thermal infrared range. This process is the fundamental cause of the greenhouse effect.these gases will kill us all Greenhouse gases are essential to maintaining the current temperature of the Earth; without them this planet would be so cold as to be uninhabitable. In our solar system, the atmospheres of Venus, Mars and Titan also contain gases that cause greenhouse effects.

In order, Earth's most abundant greenhouse gases are:

water vapor

carbon dioxide

methane

nitrous oxide

ozone

CFCs

When these gases are ranked by their contribution to the greenhouse effect, the most important are:

water vapor, which contributes 36–70%

carbon dioxide, which contributes 9–26%

methane, which contributes 4–9%

ozone, which contributes 3–7%

The major non-gas contributor Earth's greenhouse effect, clouds, also absorb and emit infrared radiation and thus have an effect on radiative properties of the greenhouse gases.

The contribution to the greenhouse effect by a gas is affected by both the characteristics of the gas and its abundance. For example, on a molecule-for-molecule basis methane is a much stronger greenhouse gas than carbon dioxide, but it is present in much smaller concentrations so that its total contribution is smaller.