• Question: how is carbon dioxide causing global warming

    Asked by Daniel to Aileen, Caroline, Christopher, Rehemat, Stephanie, Stephen on 7 Mar 2018.
    • Photo: Christopher Nankervis

      Christopher Nankervis answered on 7 Mar 2018:

      Carbon dioxide absorbs a certain frequency of radiation from sunlight as it enters the atmosphere, and this acts like a blanket that slows the cooling of the Earth as heat tries to leave back to space. The result is a gradual warming of the atmosphere and the oceans.

    • Photo: Stephanie Mann

      Stephanie Mann answered on 8 Mar 2018:

      carbon dioxide is what is known as a greenhouse gas. Greenhouses let light through the glass but insulate heat, which means the inside of greenhouses is hotter than outside. In the same way an atmosphere with lots of carbon dioxide lets sunlight in to the earth, but when that light is absorbed by the earth and emitted as heat radiation, that heat is trapped in the atmosphere like heat in a greenhouse

    • Photo: Stephen Twomlow

      Stephen Twomlow answered on 8 Mar 2018:

      Carbon Dioxide absorbs certain levels of radiation from the sun and prevent it from escaping back into space.

    • Photo: Aileen Baird

      Aileen Baird answered on 9 Mar 2018:

      The other scientists have answered this fantastically- as they have said carbon dioxide is a greenhouse gas. My research looks at what other effects the increase carbon dioxide could have on our planet, because as well as causing the planet to warm up, it can also have other effects, like changing how trees and plants grow.

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