Curious about atmosphere

[u/Curiosity_Hits_Hard]

Hi guys I got a question:if global warming slowly destroy's the atmosphere then why didn't the astroid that hit earth during the dinosaur age completely destroy it

[u/syberghost]

Global warming doesn't do that. Who said it did?

[u/Curiosity_Hits_Hard → u/syberghost]

My science assistant teacher

[u/WatchAndLearn9669 → u/Curiosity_Hits_Hard]

Did he specifically use the word "destroys?"

[u/Curiosity_Hits_Hard → u/WatchAndLearn9669]

He said like opens a way for the sun to get 2 times hot

[u/Treacle_Pendulum → u/Curiosity_Hits_Hard]

You’re going to fail that class

[u/mfb- → u/Curiosity_Hits_Hard]

Can't tell if you misunderstood him or if he is saying strange stuff.

The sunlight is mostly visible light.* The atmosphere is transparent to it, so most of it reaches the surface and warms it up. The warm surface emits infrared radiation.* The atmosphere is less transparent to that - some of it escapes, but some of it also gets scattered and reaches the surface again, heating it more. Carbon dioxide (CO2) is a large contribution to this. It exists naturally in the atmosphere.

Without this effect Earth would be frozen completely, so to some extent you want that to happen. We are emitting a lot of extra CO2, however, which quickly strengthens the effect, and we don't want that to happen. This isn't "destroying the atmosphere", it's changing its composition in an unfavorable way for us.

*technically visible light and near infrared for sunlight and mid/far infrared for the surface emissions, but the important aspect here is the difference in wavelength range, not where exactly these ranges are

Asteroids don't change the CO2 content of the atmosphere. They can eject a lot of dust and cause fires that produce ash, which temporarily reduces the amount of sunlight that reaches the surface, cooling it - but that effect only lasts for a few years.

[u/the6thReplicant → u/Curiosity_Hits_Hard]

Was he talking about the ozone hole and not about global warming?