transcription, транскрипция: [ ˈɡri:nhaus ]
noun (Environment) In environmental jargon, the Earth's atmosphere regarded as acting like a greenhouse, as pollutants (especially carbon dioxide) build up in it, allowing through more heat from the sun than reflected heat rising from the Earth's surface, so that heat in the lower atmosphere is unable to escape and global warming occurs; mostly used attributively, especially in: greenhouse effect, the trapping of the sun's warmth in the lower atmosphere because of this process; greenhouse gas, any of the various gases that contribute to the greenhouse effect (especially carbon dioxide). Etymology: A figurative use of greenhouse; in a real greenhouse, the air temperature can be kept high because the glass allows sunlight through but prevents the warmed air from escaping. History and Usage: The concept of the greenhouse effect was first worked on by meteorologists in the late nineteenth century, but it was not given this name until the 1920s. Public interest in the effect, and in the problem of global warming generally, has grown steadily since the beginning of the eighties, allowing the term to pass from specialist use in meteorology into a more widespread currency. During the eighties, attributive uses of greenhouse multiplied, as greenhouse became a shorthand way of saying 'greenhouse effect', and anything which contributed to this could then be described as 'greenhouse x'. By far the commonest of these shorthand terms is greenhouse gas, but there have also been greenhouse-friendly (see -friendly), greenhouse pollutant, greenhouse potential (the potential of a substance to contribute to the greenhouse effect), greenhouse tax (a tax on greenhouse gases, also known as carbon tax: here greenhouse means 'designed to combat the greenhouse effect'), and greenhouse warming (another name for global warming). The Greenhouse melted the poles and the glaciers, and those won't reform overnight. George Turner The Sea & Summer (1987), p. 12 We calculate that the solar flux necessary to trigger a runaway greenhouse is about 1.4 times the amount of sunlight that currently impinges on the earth. Scientific American Feb. 1988, p. 52 HCFC 142b...has 40 per cent of the so-called 'greenhouse potential' of CFC 11. New Scientist 13 May 1989, p. 26 The criticism was especially pointed in light of Bush's campaign rhetoric promising to tackle the problem of greenhouse warming. Nature 18 May 1989, p. 168 The destruction of the tropical rain-forest is also contributing to the greenhouse effect, since forests help to regulate the amount of carbon dioxide in the atmosphere. Which? Sept. 1989, p. 431