During class on friday (4/26) I participated in a lab that showed how heat was trapped in the earths atmosphere by different greenhouse gases. The gasses that were used in this experiment were water vapor, air, and carbon dioxide. We then created a graph that we recorded the temperature of each gas during 5 minute intervals.
We used a heat lamp as a replacement of the sun and then placed the three jars with the three different greenhouse gases under the light. We recorded the intuitional temperature and then every five minutes we recorded the new temperature. We did this for 15 minutes.
Our Results:
|
Time (minutes) |
Air Temp (F°) |
Carbon Dioxide Temp (F°) |
Water Vapor Temp (F°) |
|
0 |
25° |
25° |
25° |
|
5 |
39° |
19° |
27° |
|
10 |
44° |
23° |
28° |
|
15 |
49° |
24° |
31° |
Our results seemed to be working accordingly, the only issue we were getting was with Carbon Dioxide. Because of our time crunch, we were able to re-do the experiment, so we’ll have to work around the human error. All the other temperatures increased from the heat of the lamp (sun) which was predicted. Air seems to be heating at the fastest rate, followed by water vapor, and according to our results, carbon dioxide would follow that.