Although both Carbon Dioxide and Nitrous Oxide are minor constituents of the terrestrial atmosphere, they play leading roles in several current atmospheric problems. Both CO2 and N2O are greenhouse gases, and while it is known that the atmospheric concentrations of both gases is increasing, the impact of these trends on global temperature is not yet adequately understood. In addition to being a greenhouse gas, N2O plays an indirect part in ozone chemistry. Heating a molecule makes possible the observations of molecular transitions originating from highly excited rotation-vibration states. Heating a molecule makes possible the observations of molecular transitions originating from highly excited rotation-vibration states. These observations can then be used to characterize the shape of the molecular potential function at increasing distances from the minimum of the potential function. The infrared spectra of linear molecules like CO2 and N2O are composed of vibration bands made up of a number of nearly equally spaced rotation lines. A Fourier Spectrometer is ideally suited to the study of high temperature gases since it meets both of these needs by providing high resolution over a wide spectral region. Greenhouse effect.