The Atmosphere and Climate Modeling - Introduction to Carbon Capture and Sequestration - page 54

Figure 2.3.2 Radiation and the atmosphere
The top graph shows the solar radiation from an object at 5500K (red), and the earth's
radiation at 288K (blue). Because the surface of the earth has slightly different tempera-
tures at different locations, the blue curve is jagged. We see that the sun radiates in the
ultra-violet to visible wavelengths, while the earth emits in the infrared. The middle graph
shows the absorption bands in the earth's atmosphere; if the absorption is high at a
certain wavelength, the atmosphere won't transmit at that wavelength. The bottom
graphs show the contribution of individual gas absorption spectra to the total absorption
spectrum. Image based on the original created by Robert A. Rohde.
Table 2.3.2 . We see that water is the most important greenhouse gas. In
addition, both CO 2 and CH4, despite their low concentrations, contribute
signifi cantly to the greenhouse effect.
There is one additional point to make in comparing the effects of the
different gasses on the overall greenhouse effect. For this we need
Beer's law , which states that there is a logarithmic dependence