May 23, 2013
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The week's top five must-sees,
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Description
A greenhouse gas is a gas in an atmosphere that absorbs and emits radiation within the thermal infrared range. This process is the fundamental cause of the greenhouse effect. The primary greenhouse gases in the Earth's atmosphere are water vapor, carbon dioxide, methane, nitrous oxide, and ozone. In the Solar System, the atmospheres of Venus, Mars, and Titan also contain gases that cause greenhouse effects. Greenhouse gases greatly affect the temperature of the Earth; without them, Earth's surface would average about 33°C colder than the present average of 14 °C.
Since the beginning of the Industrial Revolution, the burning of fossil fuels has contributed to a 40% increase in the concentration of carbon dioxide in the atmosphere from 280 ppm to 397 ppm, despite the uptake of a large portion of the emissions by various natural "sinks" involved in the carbon cycle. Anthropogenic carbon dioxide emissions come from combustion of carbon based fuels, principally wood, coal, oil, and natural gas.
(via Freebase)
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![Top polluter hosts 'critical' climate change summit [BBC Arabic, UK]](/images/image_cache/base-14383000/14383840/thumbnail.width=304,height=171,grow=1,crop=center.jpg?sig=a78ded2ea236936ceb95a00b4aded58f)
