Global Warming Potential of Greenhouse

Table 6. Estimated relative global warming potentials of greenhouse gases, weight basis (Bunce, 1994).

The environment at lat e 959 Table 5.5.1 Global Warming potential of greenhouse gases... 

Table 7.1. Global warming potential of different greenhouse gases...

Jain A.K., Briegleb B.P., Minschwaner K., Wuebbles D.J. (2000) Radiative forcings and global warming potentials of 39 greenhouse gases.J. Geophys. Res. 105, 20773—90. 

Compare the global warming potentials of different GHGs and discuss the relative role of various chemical compounds in greenhouse effects. 

Methane is classed as a greenhouse gas. Compared with CO2, it is shorter-lived in the atmosphere, but each methane molecule has 25 times the direct Global Warming Potential of a GO2 molecule (calculated over a 100-year timescale). Because of this, there is concern about methane emissions from diverse natural sources, such as mud volcanoes and ruminants, together with the possibility of losses from methane hydrates (see p328), released as the oceans warm up. The 2010 estimates put methane emissions at around 566 million metric tonnes a year, double the pre-industrial value, with natural sources making up 37% of this. 

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