Greenhouse Gas Molecules: A Mathematical Perspective

Introduction Climate change and global warming have drawn worldwide attention in the new century. Concern about possible global warming and the controversy over the claim that it is mainly caused by the greenhouse effect provide motivation for better understanding the mathematics, physics, and chemistry of greenhouse gases. The molecules of these gases trap heat in the form of infrared radiation, causing the atmospheric temperature to rise. But which molecules are the greenhouse gases, and just how do they trap heat? In this article, we wish to give readers of the Notices some flavor of the mathematics involved so that we can understand and appreciate why mathematics is important and useful in chemistry and physics in the understanding of greenhouse gas molecules. The greenhouse effect was first suggested by an unlikely hero, the mathematician Joseph Fourier (1768–1830) in 1824 [13, 27, 28]. He observed from the then available experimental data that the Earth gets most of its energy from solar radiation. He asked a simple question: What determines the average temperature of a planet like the Earth? From his calculations, he recognized that gases