Water Vapour:  36–70%             Carbon Dioxide: 9–26%

Methane:  4–9%                        Ozone:  3–7%

It is not physically realistic to assign a specific percentage to each gas because the absorption and emission bands of the gases overlap (hence the ranges given above). The major non-gas contributor to Earth's greenhouse effect is clouds which also absorb and emit infrared radiation and thus have an effect on the radioactive properties of the atmosphere.

If it were not for greenhouse gases trapping heat in the atmosphere, the Earth would be a very cold place. Greenhouse gases keep the Earth warm through a process called the greenhouse effect. The Earth gets energy from the sun in the form of sunlight. The Earth's surface absorbs some of this energy and heats up. That's why the surface of a road can feel hot even after the sun has gone down—because it has absorbed a lot of energy from the sun. The Earth cools down by giving off a different form of energy, called infrared radiation. But before all this radiation can escape to outer space, greenhouse gases in the atmosphere absorb some of it, which makes the atmosphere warmer. As the atmosphere gets warmer, it makes the Earth's surface warmer, too.

The "greenhouse effect" of the atmosphere is named by analogy to greenhouses which become warmer in sunlight. The explanation given in most sources for the warmer temperature in an actual greenhouse is that incident solar radiation in the visible, long-wavelength ultraviolet, and short-wavelength infrared range of the spectrum passes through the glass roof and walls and is absorbed by the floor, earth, and contents, which become warmer and re-emit the energy as longer-wavelength infrared radiation. Glass and other materials used for greenhouse walls do not transmit infrared radiation, so the infrared cannot escape via radioactive transfer. As the structure is not open to the atmosphere, heat also cannot escape via convection, so the temperature inside the greenhouse rises. The greenhouse effect, due to infrared-opaque "greenhouse gases" including carbon dioxide and methane instead of glass, also affects Earth as a whole; there is no convective cooling because no significant amount of air escapes from Earth.

However the mechanism by which the atmosphere retains heat — the "greenhouse effect" — is different; a greenhouse is not primarily warmed by the "greenhouse effect". A greenhouse works primarily by allowing sunlight to warm surfaces inside the structure, but then preventing absorbed heat from leaving the structure through convection. The "greenhouse effect" heats Earth because greenhouse gases absorb outgoing radioactive energy, heating the atmosphere which then emits radioactive energy with some of it going back towards Earth.

A greenhouse is built of any material that passes sunlight, usually glass, or plastic. It mainly warms up because the sun warms the ground and contents inside, which then warms the air in the greenhouse. The air continues to heat up because it is confined within the greenhouse, unlike the environment outside the greenhouse where warm air near the surface rises and mixes with cooler air aloft. This can be demonstrated by opening a small window near the roof of a greenhouse: the temperature will drop considerably. It was demonstrated experimentally that a "greenhouse" with a cover of rock salt (which is transparent to infrared) heats up an enclosure similarly to one with a glass cover. Thus greenhouses work primarily by preventing convective cooling.

More recent quantitative studies suggest that the effect of infrared radioactive cooling is not negligibly small, and may have economic implications in a heated greenhouse. Analysis of issues of near-infrared radiation in a greenhouse with screens of a high coefficient of reflection concluded that installation of such screens reduced heat demand by about 8%, and application of dyes to transparent surfaces was suggested. Composite less-reflective glass, or less effective but cheaper anti-reflective coated simple glass, also produced savings.