evidence: Takeaways - The greenhouse effect is essential to life on Earth, but human-made emissions in the atmosphere are trapping and slowing heat loss to space. [...] A vital component of the atmosphere, carbon dioxide (CO2) is released through natural processes (like volcanic eruptions) and through human activities, such as burning fossil fuels and deforestation. [...] In its Sixth Assessment Report, the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change, composed of scientific experts from countries all over the world, concluded that it is unequivocal that the increase of CO2, methane, and nitrous oxide in the atmosphere over the industrial era is the result of human activities and that human influence is the principal driver of many changes observed across the atmosphere, ocean, cryosphere and biosphere.