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
Runaway greenhouse effect that James Hansen's outcome might be possible, but requires ten times the amount of CO we could release from burning all the oil, coal, and natural gas in Earth's crust. Further, Benton and Twitchett have a different definition of a runaway greenhouse; events meeting this definition have been suggested as a cause for the Paleocene-Eocene Thermal Maximum and the great dying. Most scientists believe that a runaway greenhouse effect is actually inevitable in the long term as the Sun gradually gets bigger and hotter as it ages. Such will potentially spell the end of all life on Earth. As the