Atmospheric Warming Explained
I assume you know how a microwave works to heat things up.
There is a device in the unit that puts out radio waves that are
the exact frequency to cause water molecules to vibrate. As the
water molecules vibrate they cause molecules around them to
vibrate. Vibrating molecules are hot molecules. This explains
why when you put certain materials in the microwave, like most
plastics, they don't heat up - no water molecules.
Well guess what, the sun produces radio type waves that are at
the exact frequency to cause C02 molecules to vibrate. This
vibration causes adjacent molecules to vibrate therefore heating
the atmosphere. Without this the Earth would be a cool place.
Actually some other molecules called "green house gases" also
vibrate but they are a very small part of the atmosphere.
An interesting fact - The atomic weight of carbon is 12 the
atomic weight of oxygen is 16. So carbon dioxide, consisting of
one carbon and two oxygen molecules weight 44. This means that
when you "burn" one ton of carbon it produces 3.6 tons of carbon
dioxide. Carbon burning occurs whenever you burn anything with
carbon - your car burning gasoline, power plants burning coal or
gas, etc.
Ok so it seems like there must be a lot of CO2 and how much is
created by man? Turns out the atmosphere has .03 percent C02, a
pretty small amount. It wouldn't take much to increase the
percentage and that will cause more warming.
So lets think back... One hundred years ago (1913) there were
very few cars. The vast majority of people in the United States
and the world did not have electricity. No airlines. Fewer
people. Since then man made carbon dioxide creation has
greatly increased.
This is all pretty simplistic and does not take into account the
conversion of carbon dioxide to carbon and oxygen by plants. It
also doesn't take into consideration absorption by the ocean or
the amount of carbon dioxide created by rotting biomass on the
earth or volcanoes. However the one component that seems to be
growing the fastest is mans addition to the amount of C02.
You might try googling "co2 production by humans". Lots of good
stuff there on both sides of the issue.