1B. The Main Greenhouse Gases
The tables below present characteristics of seven major greenhouse gases. The Global Warming Potential (GWP) indicates the radiative effect of a greenhouse gas, while the atmospheric lifetime expresses the "burden" of a specific greenhouse gas after taking into account global sink availability.
Greenhouse | Chemical Formula | Anthropogenic Sources | Atmospheric Lifetime1(years) | GWP2 (100 Year Time Horizon) |
Carbon | CO2 | Fossil-fuel combustion, Land-use conversion, Cement Production | variable1 | 1 |
Methane | CH4 | Fossil fuels, | 121 | 23 |
Nitrous | N2O | Fertilizer, | 1141 | 296 |
CFC-12 | CCL2F2 | Liquid coolants, | 100 | 10600 |
HCFC-22 | CCl2F2 | Refrigerants | 11.9 | 1700 |
Perfluoroethane | C2F6 | Aluminum smelting, | 10000 | 11900 |
Sulfur Hexaflouride | SF6 | Dielectric fluid | 3200 | 22200 |
Pre-1750 Tropospheric | Current Tropospheric | |
Carbon | 2800005,6,7 | 3777006 |
Methane | 730 / 6887 | 1847 / 17308 |
Nitrous | 2707,9 | 319 / 3188 |
CFC-12 | 0 | .545 / .5428 |
HCFC-22 | 0 | .174 / .1558 |
Perfluoroethane | 0 | .0039 |
Sulfur Hexaflouride | 0 | .00522 |
Source of graphical information and notes:
Blasing, T.J. ad K. Smith 2006. "Recent Greenhouse Gas Concentrations." In Trends: A Compendium of Data on Global Change. Carbon Dioxide Information Analysis Cetner, Oak Ridge National Laboratory, US Department of Energy, Oak Ridge, TN, USA. http://cdiac.ornl.gov/pns/current_ghg.html
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