The Greenhouse Effect

A greenhouse is a house made of glass. It has glass walls and a glass roof. People grow vegetables and flowers and other plants in them. A greenhouse stays warm inside, even during winter. During the daylight hours, a greenhouse gets warmer and warmer and stays pretty warm at night too. This is because the heat received from the sun is trapped inside the greenhouse by the glass. The Earth is also like a greenhouse. During the day Earth’s surface warms up in the sunlight. At night, the surface cools, releasing the heat back into the air. But some of the heat is trapped by gases like carbon dioxide in the atmosphere. These gases, called greenhouse gases, work like the glass walls and the roof and keep the Earth warm. This is global warming and it is making the Earth a dangerous planet. Unfortunately, we are making the earth too hot. We are using oil, gas and coal for running cars, buses, trains, planes, power stations and so on. These fuels have carbon in them. This carbon and other gases trap the heat in the atmosphere and do not allow the earth to cool down. As a result, the Earth gets hotter.