Earth ozone layer due to the subsequent conversion of atmospheric into. The ozone layer blocks ultraviolet solar radiation, permitting life on land. Other atmospheric functions important to life include transporting water vapor, providing useful gases, causing small meteors to burn up before they strike the surface, and moderating temperature. This last phenomenon is known as the greenhouse effect: trace molecules within the atmosphere serve to capture thermal energy emitted from the ground, thereby raising the average temperature. Water vapor, carbon dioxide, methane, nitrous oxide, and ozone are the primary greenhouse gases in the atmosphere. Without this heat-retention effect, the average surface
Anti-greenhouse effect Anti-greenhouse effect The anti-greenhouse effect is a mechanism similar to the greenhouse effect, but with the opposite consequence of cooling the surface temperature of a planet. If gases in the atmosphere of a planet have a lesser transmittance for inbound radiation (for instance, solar rays in the Solar System) than for outbound radiation (typically thermal radiation of the planet's surface in the infrared domain), the surface temperature at which inbound and outbound heat fluxes are at equilibrium is lower. The haze containing organic molecules in Titan's upper atmosphere absorbs 90% of the solar radiation reaching Titan, but is inefficient at