Recent years, the climate change has become the topic of concern for

everyone. The melt of the ice snow ice and the rise of sea-level are the effect of
climate change. The most common factor that contribute to climate change is
greenhouse effect. Greenhouse effect is a process where the solar radiation is
absorbed by the Earths surface and some of the heat is trap by the greenhouse gases
in the atmosphere (Kandel, 1990). This phenomenon has warm and increase the
temperature of the Earths surface. There are 5 steps in how the greenhouse effect
happen which are solar radiation passes through the atmosphere, solar radiation is
absorbed by the Earths surface, solar radiation is reflected by the Earth and the
atmosphere, some of the infrared radiation is absorbed by the greenhouse gas
molecule and radiation is converted to heat energy and warms the Earth (refer to
figure 1 in Appendix 1).

Firstly, the solar radiation passes through the atmosphere. According to Briney
every solar radiation from the sun takes approximately 8 minutes to reach the surface
of the Earth (n.d). As the radiation reach on Earth, its energy is distributed across the
global by latitude. Meanwhile energy surplus is happen as it enter the atmosphere.
Compare to pole, energy surplus happened more in the equator because there is less
direct solar radiation arrives at poles (Briney, n.d). The excess energy from the
equatorial region flow toward the poles to keep the energy balanced on the Earths
surface. This cycle is known as Earth-Atmosphere energy balance (Briney, n.d). By
the way, not 100% of solar radiation reach the Earths surface. This is because the
Earths atmosphere play an important role to minimize the exposure of the surface of
the earth to the radiation (Acra, Raffoul, & Karahagopian, 1984).

Reference
Kandel, G. (1990). Our changing climate. Paris, France: McGraw-Hill, Inc.

Acra, A., Raffoul, Z., & Karahagopian, Y. (1984). Solar energy from sun to the earth.
Retrieved from http://almashriq.hiof.no/lebanon/600/610/614/solarwater/unesco/21-23.html

Briney, A. (n.d). Solar Radiation and the Earths Albedo. Retrieved from
http://geography.about.com/od/physicalgeography/a/solarradiation.htm