Solved cryptogram
Strip the greenhouse gases out of the air and this planet would settle well below freezing.
Earth Science Facts, sourced to UCAR Center for Science Education.
Solve it yourself
This fact is a cryptogram here: 75 letters over 18 different ones, graded easy.
Or go to the puzzle’s own page first.
What it means
Sunlight arrives as visible light, which passes through the atmosphere easily, and the ground radiates it back as infrared, which water vapor and carbon dioxide absorb and reradiate in every direction, including down. Without that the surface would average around eighteen degrees below zero Celsius instead of about fifteen above. The effect is not the problem and never was; the amount of it is what changes when the composition of the air changes.
The claim comes from UCAR Center for Science Education.
- SourceUCAR Center for Science Education
- CollectionEarth Science Facts
- Difficultyeasy
- Length75 letters, 18 of them different
Nearby in the collection
The facts either side of this one.
- NOAA Chemical Sciences Laboratorymedium, 82 letters
- UCAR Center for Science Educationmedium, 76 letters
- UCAR Center for Science Educationmedium, 71 letters
- National Weather Servicehard, 74 letters
About as hard as this one
Scored closest to it by the model behind our guide to solving cryptograms.
- NOAAeasy, 70 letters
- NOAAmedium, 67 letters
- U.S. Geological Surveymedium, 71 letters
- NASAmedium, 76 letters