Once the short (click here) wavelength reaches Earth's surface it is absorbed and reflected back to space as infrared, a much longer wavelength. The longer wavelength won't pass through the greenhouse gases.
It is the change in the wavelength of light at Earth's surface and the greenhouse gases of it's atmosphere that won't allow the infrared to leave into space. The more greenhouse gases that are in Earth's atmosphere the less infrared that will escape to outer space.
1. Electromagnetic radiation (click here) at most wavelengths from the Sun passes through the Earth’s atmosphere.2. The Earth absorbs electromagnetic radiation with short wavelengths and so warms up. Heat is radiated from the Earth as longer wavelength infrared radiation.
3. Some of this infrared radiation is absorbed by greenhouse gases in the atmosphere.
4. The atmosphere warms up.
