The WMO data, meanwhile, confirms that atmospheric concentrations of the three gases principally responsible for the man-made component of the greenhouse effect - carbon dioxide, methane, and nitrous oxide - all rose during 2009.

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Since both of these chemicals are more potent greenhouse gases than carbon dioxide, this effect, too, should help combat global warming.

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Most of it is, of course, radiated back into space. (It is the partial blocking of this radiation by gases such as carbon dioxide that causes the much-talked-of greenhouse effect.) Some of it, however, goes in the opposite direction, into the ground.

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Both are far better at trapping heat than carbon dioxide, meaning that cows, chickens and their ilk have a larger greenhouse effect than all the cars, trucks and planes in the world.

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Greenhouse effect: heating of the earth's atmosphere due to an increase in gases like carbon dioxide.

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Nonetheless, the idea that carbon dioxide spewed by the world's industries is causing more heat to be trapped in the atmosphere (the "greenhouse effect") has found wide acceptance.

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