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All IPCC definitions taken from Climate Change 2007: The Physical Science Basis. Working Group I Contribution to the Fourth Assessment Report of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change, Annex I, Glossary, pp. 941-954. Cambridge University Press.
Infographic showing the basics of how the Greenhouse Effect works. The atmosphere is transparent to incoming sunlight, but carbon dioxide absorbs and traps a portion of the outgoing heat (infrared light). Adding more carbon dioxide changes the energy balance toward trapping more heat and raising Earth's overall average temperature.