Accessibility navigation


The indirect global warming potential and global temperature change potential due to methane oxidation

Boucher, O., Friedlingstein, P., Collins, B. ORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0002-7419-0850 and Shine, K. P. ORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0003-2672-9978 (2009) The indirect global warming potential and global temperature change potential due to methane oxidation. Environmental Research Letters, 4 (4). 044007. ISSN 1748-9326

Full text not archived in this repository.

It is advisable to refer to the publisher's version if you intend to cite from this work. See Guidance on citing.

To link to this item DOI: 10.1088/1748-9326/4/4/044007

Abstract/Summary

Methane is the second most important anthropogenic greenhouse gas in the atmosphere next to carbon dioxide. Its global warming potential (GWP) for a time horizon of 100 years is 25, which makes it an attractive target for climate mitigation policies. Although the methane GWP traditionally includes the methane indirect effects on the concentrations of ozone and stratospheric water vapour, it does not take into account the production of carbon dioxide from methane oxidation. We argue here that this CO2-induced effect should be included for fossil sources of methane, which results in slightly larger GWP values for all time horizons. If the global temperature change potential is used as an alternative climate metric, then the impact of the CO2-induced effect is proportionally much larger. We also discuss what the correction term should be for methane from anthropogenic biogenic sources.

Item Type:Article
Refereed:Yes
Divisions:Science > School of Mathematical, Physical and Computational Sciences > Department of Meteorology
ID Code:17102
Publisher:Institute of Physics

University Staff: Request a correction | Centaur Editors: Update this record

Page navigation