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How does carbon dioxide cause global warming?
DW (English)
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9 months ago
Extreme weather events like droughts and floods are growing more frequent, and rising CO2 emissions are a big reason why. But how are carbon dioxide and the greenhouse effect linked? This viewer question comes from Malavika V. in India.
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00:00
How does carbon dioxide cause global warming?
00:05
CO2 is a gas that occurs naturally in the atmosphere.
00:09
It's colorless and odorless and is one of a group of compounds we call greenhouse gases.
00:15
Others include water vapor, methane, nitrous oxide, and ozone.
00:20
Together they contribute to a naturally occurring greenhouse effect.
00:24
It works like this.
00:26
The sun emits radiation that warms the Earth's surface.
00:29
Much of it is reflected back towards space as heat.
00:34
Some of that, however, reacts with greenhouse gases along the way.
00:38
They absorb the heat and reflect it back downwards.
00:42
This process is what ensures relatively constant temperatures on the surface of our planet.
00:49
Without the natural greenhouse effect, the average temperature on Earth would be minus 18 degrees Celsius,
00:55
far too cold for most life forms.
00:58
But back to the question.
01:00
Although the fraction of CO2 in the atmosphere is very small,
01:04
it has an outsized influence on the greenhouse effect.
01:08
Carbon dioxide causes between 20 and 30 percent of it.
01:12
That's because of its molecular structure.
01:15
Only molecules made up of three atoms or more,
01:18
like CO2, methane, or water vapor, interact with the heat Earth radiates back into space.
01:25
It causes those molecules to start vibrating, and they generate heat in turn.
01:31
Most of the other gases in the atmosphere don't play a role in the greenhouse effect.
01:39
Since the beginning of the Industrial Revolution,
01:42
carbon dioxide levels in the atmosphere have risen by around 50 percent.
01:47
And they might double by the end of the century.
01:50
So, more heat is being retained in the atmosphere.
01:54
Research shows that the rise in CO2 concentration is a major contributor to climate change.
02:01
And more of the gas increases the frequency of extreme weather events,
02:06
like droughts, floods, and storms.
02:11
To slow the effects of climate change,
02:14
we have to significantly cut our emissions of carbon dioxide.
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