Note to users. If you're seeing this message, it means that your browser cannot find this page's style/presentation instructions -- or possibly that you are using a browser that does not support current Web standards. Find out more about why this message is appearing, and what you can do to make your experience of our site the best it can be.
A Potent Greenhouse Gas Identified in the Atmosphere: SF5CF3
W. T. Sturges,1T. J. Wallington,2M. D. Hurley,2K.
P. Shine,3K. Sihra,3A. Engel,4D. E. Oram,1S. A. Penkett,1R. Mulvaney,5C. A. M. Brenninkmeijer6
We detected a compound previously unreported in the
atmosphere, trifluoromethyl sulfur pentafluoride
(SF5CF3). Measurementsof its infrared
absorption cross section show SF5CF3 to have aradiative forcing of 0.57 watt per square meter per parts perbillion.
This is the largest radiative forcing, on a per moleculebasis, of any
gas found in the atmosphere to date. Antarctic firnmeasurements show
it to have grown from near zero in the late1960s to about 0.12 part
per trillion in 1999. It is presentlygrowing by about 0.008 part per
trillion per year, or 6% per year.Stratospheric profiles of
SF5CF3 suggest that it is long-livedin the
atmosphere (on the order of 1000 years).
1 School of Environmental Sciences, University
of East Anglia, Norwich NR4 7TJ, UK.
2 Ford Motor
Company, Mail Drop SRL-3083, Dearborn, MI 48121-2053, USA.
3 Department of Meteorology, University of Reading,
Reading RG6 6BB, UK.
4 Institute for Meteorology and
Geophysics, Johann Wolfgang Goethe University of Frankfurt, D-60325
Frankfurt, Germany.
5 British Antarctic Survey,
Natural Environment Research Council, Cambridge CB3 0ET, UK.
6 Atmospheric Chemistry Division, Max Planck
Institute for Chemistry, D-55060 Mainz, Germany.
The editors suggest the following Related Resources on Science sites:
In Science Magazine
LETTERS
Ronald A. Hites;, Michael A. Santoro;, W. T. Sturges, D. E. Oram, S. A. Penkett, T. J. Wallington, K. P. Shine, and C. A. M. Brenninkmeijer (3 November 2000) Science290 (5493), 935.
[DOI: 10.1126/science.290.5493.935] |Full Text »
THIS ARTICLE HAS BEEN CITED BY OTHER ARTICLES:
Special Feature: Keeping Mars warm with new super greenhouse gases.
M. F. Gerstell, J. S. Francisco, Y. L. Yung, C. Boxe, and E. T. Aaltonee (2001)
PNAS
98, 2154-2157
|Abstract »|Full Text »|PDF »
