The climate effect

Natural increases in carbon dioxide concentrations have helped warm the Earth's temperature for millions of years. Increases in carbon dioxide concentrations could only occur when there was an increase in sunlight.

Temperatures on Earth vary from night to day and between seasonal extremes in the Northern and Southern Hemispheres, so the differences in the hottest and coldest places will always be large.

It takes an enormous amount of heat energy to raise the average surface temperature of the Earth. The oceans on Earth are simply enormous and have an enormous capacity to retain heat. But we have managed to challenge nature's ability to retain environmental gases.

The albedo effect refers to how much sunlight is reflected back into the atmosphere. Forests in areas with snow cover can affect the overall climate effect.

Like other gases in the atmosphere, greenhouse gases are transparent to incoming sunlight. However, greenhouse gases are not transparent to heat.

Carbon dioxide is the most important of the Earth's long-lived greenhouse gases. It absorbs less heat per molecule than the greenhouse gases methane or nitrous oxide, but remains in the atmosphere much longer.

Human activities have increased the concentration of carbon dioxide in our atmosphere, amplifying the Earth's natural greenhouse effect.

All Norwegian businesses and households produce carbon. The way our society is structured, almost every activity will be considered as the production of environmental gases.

The climate has always been changing and dramatic shifts in warmer or colder directions are completely natural. Most people can also agree that the activity of 6 billion people affects the climate locally and globally.