Ever wonder what does Sustainability mean? Care to see the harnessing of water and solar power at Arizona’s earliest hydroelectric plant and Tempe’s modern solar array? How does a city turn its effluent water into a riparian preserve? Ever wonder how does river restoration work in the desert?
The greenhouse gas effect functions by trapping in the atmosphere heat from the Sun’s radiation. The greenhouse gases can be thought of as creating a one-way mirror—they allow the short wavelength energy emitted by the Sun to pass through the atmosphere and warm the Earth’s surface, but they do not allow all the longer wavelength energy radiated by the Earth back to space.
The amount of aerosols in the air has direct effect on the amount of solar radiation hitting the Earth's surface. Aerosols may have significant local or regional impact on temperature. Water vapour is a greenhouse gas, but at the same time the upper white surface of clouds reflects solar radiation back into space.