Newly Discovered Greenhouse Gas Is 7,000 Times More Powerful Than CO2

Hugh Pickens DOT Com writes "Suzanne Goldenberg writes at The Guardian that researchers at the University of Toronto's department of chemistry have identified a newly discovered greenhouse gas, perfluorotributylamine (PFTBA), in use by the electrical industry since the mid-20th century, that is 7,000 times more powerful than carbon dioxide at warming the Earth. 'We claim that PFTBA has the highest radiative efficiency of any molecule detected in the atmosphere to date,' says Angela Hong. Concentrations of PFTBA in the atmosphere are low – 0.18 parts per trillion in the Toronto area – compared to 400 parts per million for carbon dioxide but PFTBA is long-lived. There are no known processes that would destroy or remove PFTBA in the lower atmosphere so it has a very long lifetime, possibly hundreds of years, and is destroyed in the upper atmosphere. 'It is so much less than carbon dioxide, but the important thing is on a per molecule basis, it is very very effective in interacting with heat from the Earth.' PFTBA has been in use since the mid-20th century for various applications in electrical equipment, such as transistors and capacitors. 'PFTBA is just one example of an industrial chemical that is produced but there are no policies that control its production, use or emission,' says Hong. 'It is not being regulated by any type of climate policy.'"

Concentrations

[i kan reed]

Sure, lots of things have a stronger absorption profile than CO2, CH4 is one, but if it even has a hundred thousandth of the emission levels of carbon dioxide, I'd be pretty surprised.

Still: fix the easy things first.

Re:Meanwhile in russia

[i kan reed]

Fracking wells here in the U.S. have similar leakage rates. Methane is bad news, and a huge chunk of pre-life fireball era earth's atmosphere was methane.

Re:Billions are larger than millions

[Culture20]

But the initial comparison was between millions and billions. While methane may be 20x more effective, it's not 1000x more effective.

Re:Concentrations

[strech]

Did you just randomly combine numbers? Your math has nothing to do with anything.

.18 parts per trillion = 0.00000018 parts per million for PFTBA, vs 400 parts per million for CO2.

Even at 7000 times stronger for PFTBA, the PFTBA would be equivalent to
.00000018 * 7000 = 0.00126 parts per million of carbon, which is
.00126 / 400 = 0.00000315, or 0.000315 percent of the effect of the CO2.