Sir, - I write in reply to the letter from Myles Crowe (September 5th) in which he rebukes me for using the phrase "enhanced greenhouse effect" in two of my Science Today columns.
The reason I use this phrase is because it is the usual phrase used in the professional literature on the greenhouse effect and I don't want to assist any proliferation in terms for this important and well-known phenomenon. Alas, I have not pleased Mr Crowe, although I am glad that he correctly identifies the phenomenon behind the "confusing" terminology.
Mr Crowe does have a point, of course. Use of the word "enhanced" strikes a slightly jarring note in the context of the greenhouse effect. To enhance means to make better, but it is the general perception that strengthening the greenhouse effect will have negative consequences.
Perhaps it would have been better if a word such as strengthened, or increased, or magnified, had been chosen instead of enhanced, but it wasn't, and "enhanced greenhouse effect" is now established phraseology.-Yours, etc., Dr. William J. Reville,
University College, Cork.