The atmosphere allows most of the visible light from the Sun (solar radiation) to pass through and reach the Earth's surface. As the Earth's surface is heated by sunlight, it radiates part of this energy back toward space as infrared radiation. This radiation, unlike visible light, tends to be absorbed by the greenhouse gases in the atmosphere, raising its temperature. The heated atmosphere in turn radiates infrared radiation back toward the Earth's surface. (Despite its name, the greenhouse effect is different from the warming in a greenhouse, where panes of glass transmit visible sunlight but hold heat inside the building by trapping warmed air.)

Without the heating caused by the greenhouse effect, the Earth's average surface temperature would be only about −18 °C (0 °F). On Venus the very high concentration of carbon dioxide in the atmosphere causes an extreme greenhouse effect resulting in surface temperatures as high as 450 °C (840 °F).

Although the greenhouse effect is a naturally occurring phenomenon, it is possible that the effect could be intensified by the emission of greenhouse gases into the atmosphere as the result of human activity. From the beginning of the Industrial Revolution through the end of the 20th century, the amount of carbon dioxide in the atmosphere increased 30 percent and the amount of methane more than doubled. A number of scientists have predicted that human-related increases in atmospheric carbon dioxide and other greenhouse gases could lead to an increase in the global average temperature of 1.4 to 5.8 °C (2.5 to 10.4 °F) by the end of the 21st century. This global warming could alter the Earth's climates and thereby produce new patterns and extremes of drought and rainfall and possibly disrupt food production in certain regions. Other scientists involved in climatic research maintain that such predictions are overstated, however.