Q.What would Earth be like without the greenhouse effect?
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Start your 14-day free trial to unlock the full solution →Step 1. The greenhouse effect is the natural process by which gases such as water vapour, carbon dioxide, methane, nitrous oxide and ozone absorb outgoing heat radiated from Earth's surface and re-radiate some of it back down, warming the atmosphere and surface.
Step 2. In a genuinely greenhouse-gas-free atmosphere, essentially all of this outgoing heat would simply escape to space uncaptured, and Earth's average surface temperature would drop drastically -- by many tens of degrees Celsius below its actual average.
Step 3. At such low temperatures, water would freeze rather than remain liquid across most of the planet, and the stable, moderate climate that supports plant growth, ecosystems and agriculture as we know them would not exist; life could not have evolved and persisted in its current diversity under such cold conditions. …
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