Earth's natural greenhouse effect makes life as we know it possible and carbon dioxide plays a significant role in providing for the relatively high temperature that the planet enjoys. The greenhouse effect is a process by which thermal radiation from a planetary atmosphere warms the planet's surface beyond the temperature it would have in the absence of its atmosphere.Stephen H. Schneider, in "Geosphere-biosphere Interactions and Climate," Lennart O. Bengtsson and Claus U. Hammer, eds., Cambridge University Press, 2001, , pp. 90–91.E. Claussen, V.A. Cochran, and D.P. Davis, "Climate Change: Science, Strategies, & Solutions," University of Michigan, 2001. p. 373.A. Allaby and M. Allaby, "A Dictionary of Earth Sciences," Oxford University Press, 1999, , p. 244.</ref> Without the greenhouse effect, the Earth's temperature would be about compared to Earth's actual surface temperature of approximately 14 °C (57.2 °F).