<P> Earth's natural greenhouse effect is critical to supporting life . Human activities, primarily the burning of fossil fuels and clearing of forests, have intensified the natural greenhouse effect, causing global warming . </P> <P> The mechanism is named after a faulty analogy with the effect of solar radiation passing through glass and warming a greenhouse . The way a greenhouse retains heat is fundamentally different, as a greenhouse works mostly by reducing airflow and thus retaining warm air inside the structure . </P> <P> The existence of the greenhouse effect was argued for by Joseph Fourier in 1824 . The argument and the evidence were further strengthened by Claude Pouillet in 1827 and 1838 and reasoned from experimental observations by John Tyndall in 1859, who measured the radiative properties of specific greenhouse gases . The effect was more fully quantified by Svante Arrhenius in 1896, who made the first quantitative prediction of global warming due to a hypothetical doubling of atmospheric carbon dioxide . However, the term "greenhouse" was not used to refer to this effect by any of these scientists; the term was first used in this way by Nils Gustaf Ekholm in 1901 . </P> <P> Earth receives energy from the Sun in the form of ultraviolet, visible, and near - infrared radiation . Of the total amount of solar energy available at the top of the atmosphere, about 26% is reflected to space by the atmosphere and clouds and 19% is absorbed by the atmosphere and clouds . Most of the remaining energy is absorbed at the surface of Earth . Because the Earth's surface is colder than the photosphere of the Sun, it radiates at wavelengths that are much longer than the wavelengths that were absorbed . Most of this thermal radiation is absorbed by the atmosphere, thereby warming it . In addition to the absorption of solar and thermal radiation, the atmosphere gains heat by sensible and latent heat fluxes from the surface . The atmosphere radiates energy both upwards and downwards; the part radiated downwards is absorbed by the surface of Earth . This leads to a higher equilibrium temperature than if the atmosphere were absent . </P>

Who coined the term greenhouse effect or atmosphere effect