Vaporous gases in the Earth's atmosphere and in the ocean capture incoming short-wave radiation and reradiate the absorbed wavelengths as heat or long-wave radiation.

This is referred to as the natural greenhouse effect that warms the surface of the planet and the oceans. Otherwise the planet would be too cold for all but bacterial life to survive. The law of the optimum suggests that a certain level of heat trapping gases are sufficient to keep the planet from freezing but that any less than optimal and the ice ages dominate and any more than optimal can upset the prevailing climate. That may throw prevailing climate into an erratic pattern of unpredictable behavior.

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