As is well known, the earth atmosphere consists of diverse gasses, and its total mass is 5.3 × 1018 kg. Ninety percent of the air is in the troposphere under the height of 15 km, above which is the stratosphere for the rest 10%. Of the total atmosphere, 99.9% is under the height of 50 km making the atmospheric layer. The atmosphere is composed of roughly two types of gasses.
1] Quasi-steady components： nitrogen, oxygen, argon, neon, etc.
2] Greenhouse-effect components： water vapor, carbon dioxide, methane, ozone, etc.
The quasi-steady components account for almost 99% of the atmosphere, and their proportions are hardly affected by their positions, heights, or seasons. On the other hand, the greenhouse-effect components, also called variable components, substantially change their concentrations depending on the condition of the surface of the earth, levels of human activities, and seasons.
Both of steady components and greenhouse-effect gas components have a high transmissivity against the solar radiation incidenting on the Earth from the sun. The solar radiation energy, that has penetrated through the atmosphere, is absorbed by the surface of the Earth, converted to thermal energy, and after doing various jobs emitted as the infrared radiation, with its waves longer than that of the solar-radiation, into the atmosphere. The steady components have a high transmissivity against the infrared radiation as well. On the other hand, the greenhouse-effect gasses absorb infrared radiation quite well, and emit its energy as infrared-radiation energy which is proportional to their absolute temperature (= ℃+273.15) to the 4th power.
Accordingly, where the greenhouse-effect gasses are included in the atmospheric layer on the earth, the infrared-radiation energy from those gasses are added to the incidenting solar-radiation energy, raising the temperature near the ground by the corresponding value. This is the greenhouse effect of the atmosphere. Table 1 shows how each of these gasses contributes to the atmospheric greenhouse-effect.
