Updated Global Warming Potentials and Radiative Efficiencies of Halocarbons and Other Weak Atmospheric Absorbers

Hodnebrog, Øivind; Aamaas, Borgar; Fuglestvedt, Jan S.; Marston, George; Myhre, Gunnar; Nielsen, Claus J.; Sandstad, Marit; Shine, Keith P.; Wallington, Timothy J.

doi:10.1029/2019rg000691

Cited by 96 publications

(85 citation statements)

References 96 publications

(177 reference statements)

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“…Specifically, HCFC-22 and HFC-134a have recently become the 2nd and 4th most abundant greenhouse gases, respectively, among those with only anthropogenic sources 31 . Better knowledge of the ERF of these compounds could potentially lead to improved estimates of policy-relevant metrics, such as global warming potentials (GWPs), which are currently based on RF and not ERF 32 .…”

Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 99%

The effect of rapid adjustments to halocarbons and N2O on radiative forcing

et al. 2020

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Rapid adjustments occur after initial perturbation of an external climate driver (e.g., CO2) and involve changes in, e.g. atmospheric temperature, water vapour and clouds, independent of sea surface temperature changes. Knowledge of such adjustments is necessary to estimate effective radiative forcing (ERF), a useful indicator of surface temperature change, and to understand global precipitation changes due to different drivers. Yet, rapid adjustments have not previously been analysed in any detail for certain compounds, including halocarbons and N2O. Here we use several global climate models combined with radiative kernel calculations to show that individual rapid adjustment terms due to CFC-11, CFC-12 and N2O are substantial, but that the resulting flux changes approximately cancel at the top-of-atmosphere due to compensating effects. Our results further indicate that radiative forcing (which includes stratospheric temperature adjustment) is a reasonable approximation for ERF. These CFCs lead to a larger increase in precipitation per kelvin surface temperature change (2.2 ± 0.3% K−1) compared to other well-mixed greenhouse gases (1.4 ± 0.3% K−1 for CO2). This is largely due to rapid upper tropospheric warming and cloud adjustments, which lead to enhanced atmospheric radiative cooling (and hence a precipitation increase) and partly compensate increased atmospheric radiative heating (i.e. which is associated with a precipitation decrease) from the instantaneous perturbation.

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Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 99%

The effect of rapid adjustments to halocarbons and N2O on radiative forcing

et al. 2020

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“…However, ODS were not included in their study, being considered minor forcing agents. ODS have long been known to be potent greenhouse gases (Ramanathan et al 1987, Shine 1991, with Global Warming Potentials thousands of times larger than CO 2 Hodnebrog et al (2013Hodnebrog et al ( , 2020, and have been shown to considerably affect the climate system not only at high Southern latitudes (Solomon et al 2015) and in the tropics (Polvani and Bellomo 2019), but also in the Arctic (Polvani et al 2020).…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Stronger Arctic amplification from ozone-depleting substances than from carbon dioxide

Liang

Polvani

Previdi

et al. 2022

Environ. Res. Lett.

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Arctic amplification (AA) - the greater warming of the Arctic near-surface temperature relative to its global mean value - is a prominent feature of the climate response to increasing greenhouse gases. Recent work has revealed the importance of ozone-depleting substances (ODS) in contributing to Arctic warming and sea-ice loss. Here, using ensembles of climate model integrations, we expand on that work and directly contrast Arctic warming from ODS to that from carbon dioxide (CO$_2$), over the 1955-2005 period when ODS loading peaked. We find that the Arctic warming and sea-ice loss from ODS are slightly more than half (52-59\%) those from CO$_2$. We further show that the strength of AA for ODS is 1.44 times larger than that for CO$_2$, and that this mainly stems from more positive Planck, albedo, lapse-rate, and cloud feedbacks. Our results suggest that AA would be considerably stronger than presently observed had the Montreal Protocol not been signed.

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“…Accurate calculations of radiative forcing are essential to estimate future climate change [1,2]. This paper examines the effect of changing greenhouse gas concentrations on thermal radiation for the case of a clear sky.…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Relative Potency of Greenhouse Molecules

van Wijngaarden,

Happer

2021

Preprint

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The forcings due to changing concentrations of Earth's five most important, naturally occurring greenhouse gases, H 2 O, CO 2 , O 3 , N 2 O and CH 4 as well as CF 4 and SF 6 were evaluated for the case of a cloud-free atmosphere. The calculation used over 1.5 million lines having strengths as low as 10 −27 cm. For a hypothetical, optically thin atmosphere, where there is negligible saturation of the absorption bands, or interference of one type of greenhouse gas with others, the per-molecule forcings are of order 10 −22 W for H 2 O, CO 2 , O 3 , N 2 O and CH 4 and of order 10 −21 W for CF 4 and SF 6 . For current atmospheric concentrations, the per-molecule forcings of the abundant greenhouse gases H 2 O and CO 2 are suppressed by four orders of magnitude. The forcings of the less abundant greenhouse gases, O 3 , N 2 O and CH 4 , are also suppressed, but much less so. For CF 4 and SF 6 , the suppression is less than an order of magnitude because the concentrations of these gases is very low. For current concentrations, the per-molecule forcings are two to four orders of magnitude greater for O 3 , N 2 O, CH 4 , CF 4 and SF 6 than those of H 2 O or CO 2 . Doubling the current concentrations of CO 2 , N 2 O or CH 4 increases the forcings by a few per cent. A concentration increase of either CF 4 or SF 6 by a factor of 100 yields a forcing nearly an order of magnitude smaller than that obtained by doubling CO 2 . Important insight was obtained using a harmonic oscillator model to estimate the power radiated per molecule. Unlike the most intense bands of the 5 naturally occurring greenhouse gases, the frequency-integrated cross sections of CF 4 and SF 6 were found to noticeably depend on temperature.

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Updated Global Warming Potentials and Radiative Efficiencies of Halocarbons and Other Weak Atmospheric Absorbers

Cited by 96 publications

References 96 publications

The effect of rapid adjustments to halocarbons and N2O on radiative forcing

The effect of rapid adjustments to halocarbons and N2O on radiative forcing

Stronger Arctic amplification from ozone-depleting substances than from carbon dioxide

Relative Potency of Greenhouse Molecules

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