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Does Carbon Dioxide Contribute to the Runaway Greenhouse Effect?
by Alex S.

Hypothesis  Purpose  Materials  Procedure  Results  Conclusion  Bibliography & Links

 

Hypothesis	The tank with soda lime will have less heat than the one with air and the one with vinegar and baking soda. The tank with baking soda and vinegar will have more heat than the one with air and the one with soda lime.
Purpose	I did this experiment because it tells how well carbon dioxide can hold heat and that we couldn't live without it.
Materials	1 fish tank 1 glass cover to go on top of fish tank  soda lime crystals  baking soda  vinegar  small bowl  2 75 Watt lamps  1 thermometer  soil  Vaseline
Procedure	I will first put the soil in the tank along with a thermometer, next I will put glass over it and seal it with Vaseline. Two 75 Watt lamps on top of the glass will provide the heat source. I will measure the temperature inside the sealed tank for 7 to 8 hours a day for three days. One day I will use just the normal atmosphere, the next, soda lime (to decrease the carbon dioxide level) and the last day I will use baking soda and vinegar mixed together (to increase the carbon dioxide level). The thermometer as well as the lamp are always kept in the same place.
Results	The graph shows the temperatures of the three experiments for a time of 8 hours. They all rise quickly and then they reach a constant temperature. The normal air and baking soda and vinegar experiments reached a final temperature of 30 C while the experiment using soda lime only reached 28 C in the same period of time.   Click here to see the results on a graph
Conclusion	These results show that carbon dioxide retains heat since the experiment in which this gas was removed with soda lime never reached the same temperature as those experiments which had carbon dioxide in the tank. However, I was unsuccessful in getting a "runaway" greenhouse effect by increasing the carbon dioxide with baking soda and vinegar. I think that this is because I wasn't able to control the amount of extra carbon dioxide very well and maybe some of it escaped before I was able to put the lid on. I also noticed that tiny plant sprouts started to grow in the sealed tank in the several days after I finished my experiments. That leads me to think that the sealed tank had close to an earth environment.
Bibliography & Links	1. Blashfield, Jean and Black Wallace, Global Warming, Chicago: Childrens Press, 1991.  2. Johnson, Rebecca, The Greenhouse Effect, Minneapolis: Lerner Publication Company, 1990.  3. Hare, Tony, The Greenhouse Effect, New York: Gloucester Press, 1990.  4.Gutnik, Martin, Experiments That Explore the Greenhouse Effect, Brookfield: The Millbrook Press, 1991.

Back to the top of the page.  Alex S.
Timber Ridge Magnet School