Greenhouse gas

From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Greenhouse_gas

Greenhouse gases trap some of the heat that results when sunlight heats the Earth's surface. Three important greenhouse gases are shown symbolically in this image: carbon dioxide, water vapor, and methane.

Physical drivers of global warming that has happened so far. Future global warming potential for long-lived drivers like carbon dioxide emissions is not represented. Whiskers on each bar show the possible error range.

Greenhouse gases (GHGs) are the gases in an atmosphere that trap heat, raising the surface temperature of astronomical bodies such as Earth. Unlike other gases, greenhouse gases absorb the radiations that a planet emits, resulting in the greenhouse effect. The Earth is warmed by sunlight, causing its surface to radiate heat, which is then mostly absorbed by greenhouse gases. Without greenhouse gases in the atmosphere, the average temperature of Earth's surface would be about −18 °C (0 °F), rather than the present average of 15 °C (59 °F). Human-induced warming has been increasing at an unprecedented rate since it has started being measured, reaching 0.27±0.1 °C per decade over 2015–2024. This high rate of warming is caused by a combination of greenhouse gas emissions being at an all-time high of 53.6±5.2 Gt CO2e per year over the last decade (2014–2023), as well as reductions in the strength of aerosol cooling.

The five most abundant greenhouse gases in Earth's atmosphere, listed in decreasing order of average global mole fraction, are: water vapor, carbon dioxide, methane, nitrous oxide, ozone. Other greenhouse gases of concern include chlorofluorocarbons (CFCs and HCFCs), hydrofluorocarbons (HFCs), perfluorocarbons, SF
₆, and NF
₃. Water vapor causes about half of the greenhouse effect, acting in response to other gases as a climate change feedback.

Human activities since the beginning of the Industrial Revolution (around 1750) have increased carbon dioxide by over 50%, and methane levels by 150%. Carbon dioxide emissions are causing about three-quarters of global warming, while methane emissions cause most of the rest. The vast majority of carbon dioxide emissions by humans come from the burning of fossil fuels, with remaining contributions from agriculture and industry. Methane emissions originate from agriculture, fossil fuel production, waste, and other sources. The carbon cycle takes thousands of years to fully absorb CO₂ from the atmosphere, while methane lasts in the atmosphere for an average of only 12 years.

Natural flows of carbon happen between the atmosphere, terrestrial ecosystems, the ocean, and sediments. These flows have been fairly balanced over the past one million years, although greenhouse gas levels have varied widely in the more distant past. Carbon dioxide levels are now higher than they have been for three million years. The 2023 annual update of key indicators reveals that human-induced temperature rise, greenhouse gas concentrations, and the Earth's energy imbalance have all reached new records. If current emission rates continue, then global warming will surpass 2.0 °C (3.6 °F) sometime between 2040 and 2070. This is a level which the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) says is "dangerous".

Properties and mechanisms

Atmospheric absorption and scattering at different wavelengths of electromagnetic waves. The largest absorption band of carbon dioxide is not far from the maximum in the thermal emission from ground, and it partly closes the window of transparency of water—explaining carbon dioxide's major heat-trapping effect.

Greenhouse gases are infrared active, meaning that they absorb and emit infrared radiation in the same long wavelength range as what is emitted by the Earth's surface, clouds and atmosphere.

99% of the Earth's dry atmosphere (excluding water vapor) is made up of nitrogen (N
₂) (78%) and oxygen (O
₂) (21%). Because their molecules contain two atoms of the same element, they have no asymmetry in the distribution of their electrical charges, and so are almost totally unaffected by infrared thermal radiation, with only an extremely minor effect from collision-induced absorption. A further 0.9% of the atmosphere is made up by argon (Ar), which is monatomic, and so completely transparent to thermal radiation. On the other hand, carbon dioxide (0.04%), methane, nitrous oxide and even less abundant trace gases account for less than 0.1% of Earth's atmosphere, but because their molecules contain atoms of different elements, there is an asymmetry in electric charge distribution which allows molecular vibrations to interact with electromagnetic radiation. This makes them infrared active, and so their presence causes greenhouse effect.

Radiative forcing

Main article: Radiative forcing

Hansen et al. (2025) wrote that the IPCC had underestimated aerosols' cooling effect, causing it to also underestimate climate sensitivity (Earth's responsiveness to increases in greenhouse gas concentrations). In what Hansen called a Faustian bargain, regulation of aerosols improved air quality, but aerosols' cooling effect became inadequate to temper the increasing warming effect of greenhouse gases—explaining unexpectedly large global warming in 2023–2024.

Longwave-infrared absorption coefficients of primary greenhouse gases. Water vapor absorbs over a broad range of wavelengths. Earth emits thermal radiation particularly strongly in the vicinity of the carbon dioxide 15-micron absorption band. The relative importance of water vapor decreases with increasing altitude.

Earth absorbs some of the radiant energy received from the sun, reflects some of it as light, and reflects or radiates the rest back to space as heat. A planet's surface temperature depends on this balance between incoming and outgoing energy. When Earth's energy balance is shifted, its surface becomes warmer or cooler, leading to a variety of changes in global climate. Radiative forcing is a metric calculated in watts per square meter, which characterizes the impact of an external change in a factor that influences climate. It is calculated as the difference in top-of-atmosphere (TOA) energy balance immediately caused by such an external change. A positive forcing, such as from increased concentrations of greenhouse gases, means more energy arriving than leaving at the top-of-atmosphere, which causes additional warming, while negative forcing, like from sulfates forming in the atmosphere from sulfur dioxide, leads to cooling.

Within the lower atmosphere, greenhouse gases exchange thermal radiation with the surface and limit radiative heat flow away from it, which reduces the overall rate of upward radiative heat transfer. The increased concentration of greenhouse gases is also cooling the upper atmosphere, as it is much thinner than the lower layers, and any heat re-emitted from greenhouse gases is more likely to travel further to space than to interact with the fewer gas molecules in the upper layers. The upper atmosphere is also shrinking as the result.

Contributions of specific gases to the greenhouse effect

Main article: Greenhouse effect

Anthropogenic changes to the natural greenhouse effect are sometimes referred to as the enhanced greenhouse effect.

This table shows the most important contributions to the overall greenhouse effect, without which the average temperature of Earth's surface would be about −18 °C (0 °F), instead of around 15 °C (59 °F). This table also specifies tropospheric ozone, because this gas has a cooling effect in the stratosphere, but a warming influence comparable to nitrous oxide and CFCs in the troposphere.

Percent contribution to total greenhouse effect

	K&T (1997)		Schmidt (2010)
Contributor	Clear Sky	With Clouds	Clear Sky	With Clouds
Water vapor	60	41	67	50
Clouds		31		25
CO2	26	18	24	19
Tropospheric ozone (O3)	8
N2O + CH4	6
Other		9	9	7
K&T (1997) used 353 ppm CO2 and calculated 125 W/m2 total clear-sky greenhouse effect; relied on single atmospheric profile and cloud model. "With Clouds" percentages are from Schmidt's (2010) interpretation of K&T (1997). Schmidt (2010) used 1980 climatology with 339 ppm CO2 and 155 W/m2 total greenhouse effect; accounted for temporal and 3-D spatial distribution of absorbers.

Special role of water vapor

Atmospheric gases only absorb some wavelengths of energy but are transparent to others. The absorption patterns of water vapor (blue peaks) and carbon dioxide (pink peaks) overlap in some wavelengths.

Water vapor is the most important greenhouse gas overall, being responsible for 41–67% of the greenhouse effect, but its global concentrations are not directly affected by human activity. While local water vapor concentrations can be affected by developments such as irrigation, it has little impact on the global scale due to its short residence time of about nine days. Indirectly, an increase in global temperatures will also increase water vapor concentrations and thus their warming effect, in a process known as water vapor feedback. It occurs because the Clausius–Clapeyron relation holds that more water vapor will be present per unit volume at elevated temperatures. Thus, local atmospheric concentration of water vapor varies from less than 0.01% in extremely cold regions up to 3% by mass in saturated air at about 32 °C.

Global warming potential (GWP) and CO₂ equivalents

Comparison of global warming potential of three greenhouse gases over a 100-year period (GWP-100) per ton: Perfluorotributylamine (PFTBA), nitrous oxide and methane, compared to carbon dioxide (the latter is the reference value, therefore it has a GWP of one).
PFTBA is here used as an example of a larger group of potent fluorinated greenhouse gases. Fluorinated hydrocarbons combined contribute about 10% to global warming.

Global warming potential (GWP) is a measure of how much heat a greenhouse gas traps in the atmosphere over a specific time period, relative to carbon dioxide (CO₂). It is a dimensionless quantity expressed as a multiple of warming caused by the same mass of CO₂. Therefore, by definition CO₂ has a GWP of 1. For other gases it depends on how strongly the gas absorbs thermal radiation, how quickly the gas leaves the atmosphere, and the time frame considered.

For example, methane has a GWP over 20 years (GWP-20) of 81.2 meaning that, a leak of a tonne of methane is equivalent to emitting 81.2 tonnes of carbon dioxide, both measured over 20 years. As methane has a much shorter atmospheric lifetime than carbon dioxide, its GWP is much less over longer time periods, with a GWP-100 of 27.9 and a GWP-500 of 7.95.

Greenhouse gas emissions (GHG emissions) can be expressed in terms of carbon dioxide equivalent mass or just carbon dioxide equivalent (symbolized CO₂e or CO₂eq, also denoted CO₂-e or CO₂-eq) can be calculated from the GWP and emitted mass. For any gas, it is the mass of CO₂ that would warm the earth as much as the mass of that gas. Thus it provides a common scale for measuring the climate effects of different gases. It is calculated as GWP times mass of the other gas; it is typically expressed in gigatonnes (symbol Gt).

List of all greenhouse gases

The radiative forcing (warming influence) of long-lived atmospheric greenhouse gases has accelerated, almost doubling in 40 years.

The contribution of each gas to the enhanced greenhouse effect is determined by the characteristics of that gas, its abundance, and any indirect effects it may cause. For example, the direct radiative effect of a mass of methane is about 84 times stronger than the same mass of carbon dioxide over a 20-year time frame. Since the 1980s, greenhouse gas forcing contributions (relative to year 1750) are also estimated with high accuracy using IPCC-recommended expressions derived from radiative transfer models.

The concentration of a greenhouse gas is typically measured in parts per million (ppm) or parts per billion (ppb) by volume. A CO₂ concentration of 420 ppm means that 420 out of every million air molecules is a CO₂ molecule. The first 30 ppm increase in CO₂ concentrations took place in about 200 years, from the start of the Industrial Revolution to 1958; however the next 90 ppm increase took place within 56 years, from 1958 to 2014. Similarly, the average annual increase in the 1960s was only 37% of what it was in 2000 through 2007.

Many observations are available online in a variety of Atmospheric Chemistry Observational Databases. The table below shows the most influential long-lived, well-mixed greenhouse gases, along with their tropospheric concentrations and direct radiative forcings, as identified by the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC). Abundances of these trace gases are regularly measured by atmospheric scientists from samples collected throughout the world. It excludes water vapor because changes in its concentrations are calculated as a climate change feedback indirectly caused by changes in other greenhouse gases, as well as ozone, whose concentrations are only modified indirectly by various refrigerants that cause ozone depletion. Some short-lived gases (e.g. carbon monoxide, NOx) and aerosols (e.g. mineral dust or black carbon) are also excluded because of limited role and strong variation, along with minor refrigerants and other halogenated gases, which have been mass-produced in smaller quantities than those in the table. and Annex III of the 2021 IPCC WG1 Report.

Factors affecting concentrations

Atmospheric concentrations are determined by the balance between sources (emissions of the gas from human activities and natural systems) and sinks (the removal of the gas from the atmosphere by conversion to a different chemical compound or absorption by bodies of water).

Airborne fraction

Most CO₂ emissions have been absorbed by carbon sinks, including plant growth, soil uptake, and ocean uptake (2020 Global Carbon Budget).

The proportion of an emission remaining in the atmosphere after a specified time is the "airborne fraction" (AF). The annual airborne fraction is the ratio of the atmospheric increase in a given year to that year's total emissions. The annual airborne fraction for CO₂ had been stable at 0.45 for the past six decades even as the emissions have been increasing. This means that the other 0.55 of emitted CO₂ is absorbed by the land and atmosphere carbon sinks within the first year of an emission. In the high-emission scenarios, the effectiveness of carbon sinks will be lower, increasing the atmospheric fraction of CO₂ even though the raw amount of emissions absorbed will be higher than in the present.

Atmospheric lifetime

Estimated atmospheric methane lifetime before the industrial era (shaded area); changes in methane lifetime since 1850 as simulated by a climate model (blue line), and the reconciled graph (red line).

Major greenhouse gases are well mixed and take many years to leave the atmosphere.

The atmospheric lifetime of a greenhouse gas refers to the time required to restore equilibrium following a sudden increase or decrease in its concentration in the atmosphere. Individual atoms or molecules may be lost or deposited to sinks such as the soil, the oceans and other waters, or vegetation and other biological systems, reducing the excess to background concentrations. The average time taken to achieve this is the mean lifetime. This can be represented through the following formula, where the lifetime ${\displaystyle \tau }$ of an atmospheric species X in a one-box model is the average time that a molecule of X remains in the box.

${\displaystyle \tau }$ can also be defined as the ratio of the mass ${\displaystyle m}$ (in kg) of X in the box to its removal rate, which is the sum of the flow of X out of the box (${\displaystyle F_{\text{out}}}$), chemical loss of X (${\displaystyle L}$), and deposition of X (${\displaystyle D}$) (all in kg/s):

${\displaystyle \tau =\frac{m}{F_{\text{out}}+L+D}}$.

If input of this gas into the box ceased, then after time ${\displaystyle \tau }$, its concentration would decrease by about 63%.

Changes to any of these variables can alter the atmospheric lifetime of a greenhouse gas. For instance, methane's atmospheric lifetime is estimated to have been lower in the 19th century than now, but to have been higher in the second half of the 20th century than after 2000. Carbon dioxide has an even more variable lifetime, which cannot be specified down to a single number. Scientists instead say that while the first 10% of carbon dioxide's airborne fraction (not counting the ~50% absorbed by land and ocean sinks within the emission's first year) is removed "quickly", the vast majority of the airborne fraction – 80% – lasts for "centuries to millennia". The remaining 10% stays for tens of thousands of years. In some models, this longest-lasting fraction is as large as 30%.

A comparison of CO2 persistence in the atmosphere with an exponential decay function with the same half-life

During geologic time scales

CO₂ concentrations over the last 500 million years

Concentration of atmospheric CO₂ over the last 40,000 years, from the Last Glacial Maximum to the present day. The current rate of increase is much higher than at any point during the last deglaciation.

Estimates in 2023 found that the current carbon dioxide concentration in the atmosphere may be the highest it has been in the last 14 million years. However the IPCC Sixth Assessment Report estimated similar levels 3 to 3.3 million years ago in the mid-Pliocene warm period. This period can be a proxy for likely climate outcomes with current levels of CO₂.

Carbon dioxide is believed to have played an important effect in regulating Earth's temperature throughout its 4.54 billion year history. Early in the Earth's life, scientists have found evidence of liquid water indicating a warm world even though the Sun's output is believed to have only been 70% of what it is today. Higher carbon dioxide concentrations in the early Earth's atmosphere might help explain this faint young sun paradox. When Earth first formed, Earth's atmosphere may have contained more greenhouse gases and CO₂ concentrations may have been higher, with estimated partial pressure as large as 1,000 kPa (10 bar), because there was no bacterial photosynthesis to reduce the gas to carbon compounds and oxygen. Methane, a very active greenhouse gas, may have been more prevalent as well.^[

Monitoring

Further information: Greenhouse gas monitoring, Greenhouse gas inventory, and Greenhouse gas emissions

Greenhouse gas monitoring involves the direct measurement of atmospheric concentrations and direct and indirect measurement of greenhouse gas emissions. Indirect methods calculate emissions of greenhouse gases based on related metrics such as fossil fuel extraction.

There are several different methods of measuring carbon dioxide concentrations in the atmosphere, including infrared analyzing and manometry. Methane and nitrous oxide are measured by other instruments, such as the range-resolved infrared differential absorption lidar (DIAL). Greenhouse gases are measured from space such as by the Orbiting Carbon Observatory and through networks of ground stations such as the Integrated Carbon Observation System.

The Annual Greenhouse Gas Index (AGGI) is defined by atmospheric scientists at NOAA as the ratio of total direct radiative forcing due to long-lived and well-mixed greenhouse gases for any year for which adequate global measurements exist, to that present in year 1990. These radiative forcing levels are relative to those present in year 1750 (i.e. prior to the start of the industrial era). 1990 is chosen because it is the baseline year for the Kyoto Protocol, and is the publication year of the first IPCC Scientific Assessment of Climate Change. As such, NOAA states that the AGGI "measures the commitment that (global) society has already made to living in a changing climate. It is based on the highest quality atmospheric observations from sites around the world. Its uncertainty is very low."

Data networks

There are several surface measurement (including flasks and continuous in situ) networks including NOAA/ERSL, WDCGG, and RAMCES. The NOAA/ESRL Baseline Observatory Network, and the Scripps Institution of Oceanography Network data are hosted at the CDIAC at ORNL. The World Data Centre for Greenhouse Gases (WDCGG), part of GAW, data are hosted by the JMA. The Reseau Atmospherique de Mesure des Composes an Effet de Serre database (RAMCES) is part of IPSL.

Types of sources

Natural sources

Further information: Carbon cycle

The natural flows of carbon between the atmosphere, ocean, terrestrial ecosystems, and sediments are fairly balanced; so carbon levels would be roughly stable without human influence. Carbon dioxide is removed from the atmosphere primarily through photosynthesis and enters the terrestrial and oceanic biospheres. Carbon dioxide also dissolves directly from the atmosphere into bodies of water (ocean, lakes, etc.), as well as dissolving in precipitation as raindrops fall through the atmosphere. When dissolved in water, carbon dioxide reacts with water molecules and forms carbonic acid. It can then acidify the surfaces it touches, thereby be absorbed by rocks through weathering, or be washed into the ocean contributing to ocean acidity.

Schematic representation of the overall perturbation of the global carbon cycle caused by anthropogenic activities, averaged from 2010 to 2019

The atmospheric carbon cycle accounts for the exchange of gaseous carbon compounds, primarily carbon dioxide (CO₂), between Earth's atmosphere, the oceans, and the terrestrial biosphere. It is one of the faster components of the planet's overall carbon cycle, supporting the exchange of more than 200 billion tons of carbon (i.e. gigatons carbon or GtC) in and out of the atmosphere throughout the course of each year. Atmospheric concentrations of CO₂ remain stable over longer timescales only when there exists a balance between these two flows. Methane (CH₄), Carbon monoxide (CO), and other human-made compounds are present in smaller concentrations and are also part of the atmospheric carbon cycle.

Human-made sources

Taking into account direct and indirect emissions, industry is the sector with the highest share of global emissions. Data as of 2019 from the IPCC.

Main article: Greenhouse gas emissions

The vast majority of carbon dioxide emissions by humans come from the burning of fossil fuels. Additional contributions come from cement manufacturing, fertilizer production, and changes in land use like deforestation. Methane emissions originate from agriculture, fossil fuel production, waste, and other sources. Rice paddies are a significant agricultural source of greenhouse gas emissions, contributing 22% of total agricultural methane and 11% of nitrous oxide emissions.

If current emission rates continue then temperature rises will surpass 2.0 °C (3.6 °F) sometime between 2040 and 2070, which is the level the United Nations' Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) says is "dangerous".

Most greenhouse gases have both natural and human-caused sources. An exception are purely human-produced synthetic halocarbons which have no natural sources. During the pre-industrial Holocene, concentrations of existing gases were roughly constant, because the large natural sources and sinks roughly balanced. In the industrial era, human activities have added greenhouse gases to the atmosphere, mainly through the burning of fossil fuels and clearing of forests.

The major anthropogenic (human origin) sources of greenhouse gases are carbon dioxide (CO₂), nitrous oxide (N
₂O), methane and three groups of fluorinated gases (sulfur hexafluoride (SF
₆), hydrofluorocarbons (HFCs) and perfluorocarbons (PFCs, sulphur hexafluoride (SF₆), and nitrogen trifluoride (NF₃)). Though the greenhouse effect is heavily driven by water vapor, human emissions of water vapor are not a significant contributor to warming.

Reducing human-caused greenhouse gases

Main article: Climate change mitigation

Needed emissions cuts

Global greenhouse gas emission scenarios, based on policies and pledges as of 11/21

The annual "Emissions Gap Report" by UNEP stated in 2022 that it was necessary to almost halve emissions. "To get on track for limiting global warming to 1.5°C, global annual GHG emissions must be reduced by 45 per cent compared with emissions projections under policies currently in place in just eight years, and they must continue to decline rapidly after 2030, to avoid exhausting the limited remaining atmospheric carbon budget." The report commented that the world should focus on broad-based economy-wide transformations and not incremental change.

In 2022, the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) released its Sixth Assessment Report on climate change. It warned that greenhouse gas emissions must peak before 2025 at the latest and decline 43% by 2030 to have a good chance of limiting global warming to 1.5 °C (2.7 °F). Or in the words of Secretary-General of the United Nations António Guterres: "Main emitters must drastically cut emissions starting this year".

A 2023 synthesis by leading climate scientists highlighted ten critical areas in climate science with significant policy implications. These include the near inevitability of temporarily exceeding the 1.5 °C warming limit, the urgent need for a rapid and managed fossil fuel phase-out, challenges in scaling carbon dioxide removal technologies, uncertainties regarding the future contribution of natural carbon sinks, and the interconnected crises of biodiversity loss and climate change. These insights underscore the necessity for immediate and comprehensive mitigation strategies to address the multifaceted challenges of climate change.

According to a joint press release published by the German Physical society and the German meteorological society in September 2025, if the current trends will continue, global temperature can rise to 3°C above pre-industrial level by the year 2050, and by 5°C by the year 2100. The scientists emphasised the need to urgently implement already existing solutions.

Removal from the atmosphere through negative emissions

Main articles: Carbon dioxide removal, Net-zero emissions, and Carbon sink

Several technologies remove greenhouse gas emissions from the atmosphere. Most widely analyzed are those that remove carbon dioxide from the atmosphere, either to geologic formations such as bio-energy with carbon capture and storage and carbon dioxide air capture, or to the soil as in the case with biochar. Many long-term climate scenario models require large-scale human-made negative emissions to avoid serious climate change.

Negative emissions approaches are also being studied for atmospheric methane, called atmospheric methane removal.

History of discovery

Further information: History of climate change science and Greenhouse effect § History

This 1912 article succinctly describes how burning coal creates carbon dioxide that causes climate change.

In the late 19th century, scientists experimentally discovered that N
₂ and O
₂ do not absorb infrared radiation (called, at that time, "dark radiation"), while water (both as true vapor and condensed in the form of microscopic droplets suspended in clouds) and CO₂ and other poly-atomic gaseous molecules do absorb infrared radiation. In the early 20th century, researchers realized that greenhouse gases in the atmosphere made Earth's overall temperature higher than it would be without them. The term greenhouse was first applied to this phenomenon by Nils Gustaf Ekholm in 1901.

During the late 20th century, a scientific consensus evolved that increasing concentrations of greenhouse gases in the atmosphere cause a substantial rise in global temperatures and changes to other parts of the climate system, with consequences for the environment and for human health.

Other planets

Further information: Greenhouse effect § Bodies other than Earth

Greenhouse gases exist in many atmospheres, creating greenhouse effects on Mars, Titan, and particularly in the thick atmosphere of Venus. While Venus has been described as the ultimate end state of runaway greenhouse effect, such a process would have virtually no chance of occurring from any increases in greenhouse gas concentrations caused by humans, as the Sun's brightness is too low and it would likely need to increase by some tens of percents, which will take a few billion years.

Global warming potential

From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Global_warming_potential 

Comparison of global warming potential of three greenhouse gases over a 100-year period (GWP-100) per ton: Perfluorotributylamine (PFTBA), nitrous oxide and methane, compared to carbon dioxide (the latter is the reference value, therefore it has a GWP of one).
PFTBA is here used as an example of a larger group of potent fluorinated greenhouse gases. Fluorinated hydrocarbons combined contribute about 10% to global warming.

Global warming potential (GWP) is a measure of how much heat a greenhouse gas traps in the atmosphere over a specific time period, relative to carbon dioxide (CO₂). It is a dimensionless quantity expressed as a multiple of warming caused by the same mass of CO₂. Therefore, by definition CO₂ has a GWP of 1. For other gases it depends on how strongly the gas absorbs thermal radiation, how quickly the gas leaves the atmosphere, and the time frame considered.

For example, methane has a GWP over 20 years (GWP-20) of 81.2 meaning that, a leak of a tonne of methane is equivalent to emitting 81.2 tonnes of carbon dioxide, both measured over 20 years. As methane has a much shorter atmospheric lifetime than carbon dioxide, its GWP is much less over longer time periods, with a GWP-100 of 27.9 and a GWP-500 of 7.95.

Greenhouse gas emissions (GHG emissions) can be expressed in terms of carbon dioxide equivalent mass or just carbon dioxide equivalent (symbolized CO₂e or CO₂eq, also denoted CO₂-e or CO₂-eq) can be calculated from the GWP and emitted mass. For any gas, it is the mass of CO₂ that would warm the earth as much as the mass of that gas. Thus it provides a common scale for measuring the climate effects of different gases. It is calculated as GWP times mass of the other gas; it is typically expressed in gigatonnes (symbol Gt).

Definition

See also: Radiative forcing

The global warming potential (GWP) is defined as an "index measuring the radiative forcing following an emission of a unit mass of a given substance, accumulated over a chosen time horizon, relative to that of the reference substance, carbon dioxide (CO₂). The GWP thus represents the combined effect of the differing duration these substances remain in the atmosphere and their effectiveness in causing radiative forcing.

In turn, radiative forcing is a scientific concept used to quantify and compare the external drivers of change to Earth's energy balance. Radiative forcing is the change in energy flux in the atmosphere caused by natural or anthropogenic factors of climate change as measured in watts per meter squared.

Importance of time scale

A substance's GWP depends on the time scale (expressed as a number of years, denoted by a subscript) over which the potential is calculated. A gas which is quickly removed from the atmosphere may initially have a large effect, but for longer time periods, as it has been removed, it becomes less important. Thus methane has a potential of 25 over 100 years (GWP₁₀₀ = 25) but 86 over 20 years (GWP₂₀ = 86); conversely sulfur hexafluoride has a GWP of 22,800 over 100 years but 16,300 over 20 years (IPCC Third Assessment Report). The GWP value depends on how the gas concentration decays over time in the atmosphere. This is often not precisely known and hence the values should not be considered exact. For this reason when quoting a GWP it is important to give a reference to the calculation. Commonly, a time scale of 100 years is used by regulators. CO₂e calculations depend on the time-scale chosen, typically 100 years or 20 years, since gases decay in the atmosphere or are absorbed naturally, at different rates.

Carbon dioxide equivalent

Carbon dioxide equivalent mass or just carbon dioxide equivalent (symbol CO₂e or CO₂eq or CO₂-e) of a quantity of gas is calculated from its GWP. For any gas, it is the mass of CO₂ which would warm the earth as much as the mass of that gas. Thus it provides a common scale for measuring the climate effects of different gases. It is calculated as GWP multiplied by mass of the other gas. For example, if a gas has GWP of 100, two tonnes of the gas have CO₂e of 200 tonnes, and 9 tonnes of the gas has CO₂e of 900 tonnes.

On a global scale, the warming effects of one or more greenhouse gases in the atmosphere can also be expressed as a carbon dioxide equivalent concentration. It is the atmospheric concentration of CO₂ which would warm the earth as much as a particular concentration of some other gas or of all gases and aerosols in the atmosphere. For example, CO₂e of 500 parts per million would reflect a mix of atmospheric gases which warm the earth as much as 500 parts per million of CO₂ would warm it. Calculation of the CO₂ equivalent concentration of an atmospheric greenhouse gas or aerosol is more complex and involves the atmospheric concentrations of those gases, their GWPs, and the ratios of their molar masses to the molar mass of CO₂.

The following units are commonly used:

• By the UN climate change panel (IPCC): billion metric tonnes = n×10⁹ tonnes of CO₂ equivalent (GtCO₂eq)
• In industry: million metric tonnes of carbon dioxide equivalents (MMTCDE) and MMT CO₂eq.

Further derived quantities include carbon dioxide equivalent mass per distance, as used for vehicle travels. It has SI units of grams per kilometer (g/km), often denoted "grams of carbon dioxide equivalent per kilometer" (gCO₂e/km) or per mile (gCO₂e/mile).

For example, the table below shows GWP for methane over 20 years at 86 and nitrous oxide at 289, so emissions of 1 million tonnes of methane or nitrous oxide are equivalent to emissions of 86 or 289 million tonnes of carbon dioxide, respectively.

Calculation methods

The radiative forcing (warming influence) of long-lived atmospheric greenhouse gases has accelerated, almost doubling in 40 years.

When calculating the GWP of a greenhouse gas, the value depends on the following factors:

• the absorption of infrared radiation by the given gas
• the time horizon of interest (integration period)
• the atmospheric lifetime of the gas

A high GWP correlates with a large infrared absorption and a long atmospheric lifetime. The dependence of GWP on the wavelength of absorption is more complicated. Even if a gas absorbs radiation efficiently at a certain wavelength, this may not affect its GWP much, if the atmosphere already absorbs most radiation at that wavelength. A gas has the most effect if it absorbs in a "window" of wavelengths where the atmosphere is fairly transparent. The dependence of GWP as a function of wavelength has been found empirically and published as a graph.

Because the GWP of a greenhouse gas depends directly on its infrared spectrum, the use of infrared spectroscopy to study greenhouse gases is centrally important in the effort to understand the impact of human activities on global climate change.

Just as radiative forcing provides a simplified means of comparing the various factors that are believed to influence the climate system to one another, global warming potentials (GWPs) are one type of simplified index based upon radiative properties that can be used to estimate the potential future impacts of emissions of different gases upon the climate system in a relative sense. GWP is based on a number of factors, including the radiative efficiency (infrared-absorbing ability) of each gas relative to that of carbon dioxide, as well as the decay rate of each gas (the amount removed from the atmosphere over a given number of years) relative to that of carbon dioxide.

The radiative forcing capacity (RF) is the amount of energy per unit area, per unit time, absorbed by the greenhouse gas, that would otherwise be lost to space. It can be expressed by the formula:

$${\displaystyle \mathit{R}\mathit{F}=\sum _{i=1}^{100}{\text{abs}}_i\cdot F_i/\left(\text{l}\cdot \text{d}\right)}$$ where the subscript i represents a wavenumber interval of 10 inverse centimeters. Abs_i represents the integrated infrared absorbance of the sample in that interval, and F_i represents the RF for that interval.

The Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) provides the generally accepted values for GWP, which changed slightly between 1996 and 2001, except for methane, which had its GWP almost doubled. An exact definition of how GWP is calculated is to be found in the IPCC's 2001 Third Assessment Report. The GWP is defined as the ratio of the time-integrated radiative forcing from the instantaneous release of 1 kg of a trace substance relative to that of 1 kg of a reference gas:

$${\displaystyle \mathit{G}\mathit{W}\mathit{P}\left(x\right)=\frac{a_x}{a_r}\frac{{\int }_0^{\mathit{T}\mathit{H}}[x](t)dt}{{\int }_0^{\mathit{T}\mathit{H}}[r](t)dt}}$$ where TH is the time horizon over which the calculation is considered; a_x is the radiative efficiency due to a unit increase in atmospheric abundance of the substance (i.e., Wm⁻² kg⁻¹) and [x](t) is the time-dependent decay in abundance of the substance following an instantaneous release of it at time t=0. The denominator contains the corresponding quantities for the reference gas (i.e. CO₂). The radiative efficiencies a_x and a_r are not necessarily constant over time. While the absorption of infrared radiation by many greenhouse gases varies linearly with their abundance, a few important ones display non-linear behaviour for current and likely future abundances (e.g., CO₂, CH₄, and N₂O). For those gases, the relative radiative forcing will depend upon abundance and hence upon the future scenario adopted.

Since all GWP calculations are a comparison to CO₂ which is non-linear, all GWP values are affected. Assuming otherwise as is done above will lead to lower GWPs for other gases than a more detailed approach would. Clarifying this, while increasing CO₂ has less and less effect on radiative absorption as ppm concentrations rise, more powerful greenhouse gases like methane and nitrous oxide have different thermal absorption frequencies to CO₂ that are not filled up (saturated) as much as CO₂, so rising ppms of these gases are far more significant.

Mixtures

The GWP for a mixture of gases can be obtained from the mass-fraction-weighted average of the GWPs of the individual gases.

Water vapour

See also: Greenhouse gas § Special role of water vapor, and Climate change feedbacks § Water vapor feedback (positive)

Water vapour does contribute to anthropogenic global warming, but as the GWP is defined, it is negligible for H₂O: an estimate gives a 100-year GWP between -0.001 and 0.0005.

H₂O can function as a greenhouse gas because it has a profound infrared absorption spectrum with more and broader absorption bands than CO₂. Its concentration in the atmosphere is limited by air temperature, so that radiative forcing by water vapour increases with global warming (positive feedback). But the GWP definition excludes indirect effects. GWP definition is also based on emissions, and anthropogenic emissions of water vapour (cooling towers, irrigation) are removed via precipitation within weeks, so its GWP is negligible.

Applications

Use in policymaking

As governments develop policies to combat emissions from high-GWP sources, policymakers have chosen to use the 100-year GWP scale as the standard in international agreements. The Kigali Amendment to the Montreal Protocol sets the global phase-down of hydrofluorocarbons (HFCs), a group of high-GWP compounds. It requires countries to use a set of GWP100 values equal to those published in the IPCC's Fourth Assessment Report (AR4). This allows policymakers to have one standard for comparison instead of changing GWP values in new assessment reports. One exception to the GWP100 standard exists: New York state’s Climate Leadership and Community Protection Act requires the use of GWP20, despite being a different standard from all other countries participating in phase downs of HFCs.

Use in Kyoto Protocol and for reporting to UNFCCC

Under the Kyoto Protocol, in 1997 the Conference of the Parties standardized international reporting, by deciding (see decision number 2/CP.3) that the values of GWP calculated for the IPCC Second Assessment Report were to be used for converting the various greenhouse gas emissions into comparable CO₂ equivalents.

After some intermediate updates, in 2013 this standard was updated by the Warsaw meeting of the UN Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC, decision number 24/CP.19) to require using a new set of 100-year GWP values. They published these values in Annex III, and they took them from the IPCC Fourth Assessment Report, which had been published in 2007. Those 2007 estimates are still used for international comparisons through 2020, although the latest research on warming effects has found other values, as shown in the tables above.

Though recent reports reflect more scientific accuracy, countries and companies continue to use the IPCC Second Assessment Report (SAR) and IPCC Fourth Assessment Report values for reasons of comparison in their emission reports. The IPCC Fifth Assessment Report has skipped the 500-year values but introduced GWP estimations including the climate-carbon feedback (f) with a large amount of uncertainty.

Other metrics to compare greenhouse gases

The global temperature change potential (GTP) is another way to compare greenhouse gases. While GWP estimates infrared thermal radiation absorbed, GTP estimates the resulting rise in average surface temperature of the world, over a given time horizon (the next 20, 50 or 100 years), caused by a greenhouse gas, relative to the temperature rise which the same mass of CO₂ would cause. Calculation of GTP requires modelling how the world, especially the oceans, will absorb heat. GTP is published in the same IPCC tables with GWP.

Another metric called GWP* (pronounced "GWP star") has been proposed to take better account of short-lived climate pollutants (SLCPs) such as methane. A permanent increase in the rate of emission of an SLCP has a similar effect to that of a one-time emission of an amount of carbon dioxide, because both raise the radiative forcing permanently or (in the case of carbon dioxide) practically permanently (since the CO₂ stays in the air for a long time). GWP* therefore assigns an increase in emission rate of an SLCP a supposedly equivalent amount (tonnes) of CO₂. However GWP* has been criticised both for its suitability as a metric and for inherent design features which can perpetuate injustices and inequity. Developing countries whose emissions of SLCPs are increasing are "penalized", while developed countries such as Australia or New Zealand which have steady emissions of SLCPs are not penalized in this way, though they may be penalized for their emissions of CO_2.

Calculated values

See also: Greenhouse gas § Global warming potential (GWP) and CO2 equivalents

Global warming potential of five greenhouse gases over 100-year timescale.

The global warming potential (GWP) depends on both the efficiency of the molecule as a greenhouse gas and its atmospheric lifetime. GWP is measured relative to the same mass of CO₂ and evaluated for a specific timescale. Thus, if a gas has a high (positive) radiative forcing but also a short lifetime, it will have a large GWP on a 20-year scale but a small one on a 100-year scale. Conversely, if a molecule has a longer atmospheric lifetime than CO₂ its GWP will increase when the timescale is considered. Carbon dioxide is defined to have a GWP of 1 over all time periods.

Methane has an atmospheric lifetime of 12 ± 2 years. The 2021 IPCC report lists the GWP as 83 over a time scale of 20 years, 30 over 100 years and 10 over 500 years. The decrease in GWP at longer times is because methane decomposes to water and CO₂ through chemical reactions in the atmosphere. Similarly the third most important GHG, nitrous oxide (N₂O), is a common gas emitted through the denitrification part of the nitrogen cycle. It has a lifetime of 109 years and an even higher GWP level running at 273 over 20 and 100 years.

Examples of the atmospheric lifetime and GWP relative to CO₂ for several greenhouse gases are given in the following table (IPCC Sixth Assessment Report from 2021).