Updated global warming potentials and radiative efficiencies of halocarbons and other weak atmospheric absorbers

Hodnebrog, Ø., Aamas, B., Fuglestvedt, J. S., Marston, George, Myhre, G., Nielsen, C. J., Sandstad, M., Shine, K. P. and Wallington, T. J. (2020) Updated global warming potentials and radiative efficiencies of halocarbons and other weak atmospheric absorbers. Reviews of Geophysics, 58 (3). e2019RG000691. ISSN 8755-1209

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Official URL: https://doi.org/10.1029/2019RG000691

Abstract

Human activity has led to increased atmospheric concentrations of many gases, including halocarbons, and may lead to emissions of many more gases. Many of these gases are, on a per molecule basis, powerful greenhouse gases, although at present-day concentrations their climate effect is in the so-called weak limit (i.e. their effect scales linearly with concentration). We published a comprehensive review of the radiative efficiencies (RE) and global warming potentials (GWP) for around 200 such compounds in 2013 (Hodnebrog et al., 2013). Here we present updated RE and GWP values for compounds where experimental infrared absorption spectra are available. Updated numbers are based on a revised “Pinnock curve”, which gives RE as a function of wavenumber, and now also accounts for stratospheric temperature adjustment (Shine and Myhre, 2020). Further updates include the implementation of around 500 absorption spectra additional to those in the 2013 review, and new atmospheric lifetimes from the literature (mainly from WMO (2019)). In total, values for 60 of the compounds previously assessed are based on additional absorption spectra, and 42 compounds have REs which differ by >10 from our previous assessment. New RE calculations are presented for more than 400 compounds in addition to the previously assessed compounds, and GWP calculations are presented for a total of around 250 compounds. Present-day radiative forcing due to halocarbons and other weak absorbers is 0.38 0.33-0.43 W m-2, compared to 0.36 0.32-0.40 W m-2 in IPCC AR5 (Myhre et al., 2013), which is about 18% of the current CO2 forcing.

Item Type: Article
Uncontrolled Keywords: Radiative efficiency, Global warming potential, Halocarbons
Subjects: F700 Ocean Sciences
F800 Physical and Terrestrial Geographical and Environmental Sciences
F900 Others in Physical Sciences
Department: Faculties > Engineering and Environment > Geography and Environmental Sciences
Depositing User: Rachel Branson
Date Deposited: 21 Jul 2020 08:47
Last Modified: 31 Jul 2021 12:52
URI: http://nrl.northumbria.ac.uk/id/eprint/43834

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