Indirect global warming effects of ozone and stratospheric water vapor induced by surface methane emission

Description/Abstract

Methane has indirect effects on climate due to chemical interactions as well as direct radiative forcing effects as a greenhouse gas. We have calculated the indirect, time-varying tropospheric radiative forcing and GWP of O{sub 3} and stratospheric H{sub 2}O due to an impulse of CH{sub 4}. This impulse, applied to the lowest layer of the atmosphere, is the increase of the atmospheric mass of CH{sub 4} resulting from a 25 percent steady state increase in the current emissions as a function of latitude. The direct CH{sub 4} radiative forcing and GWP are also calculated. The LLNL 2-D radiative-chemistry-transport model is used to evaluate the resulting changes in the O{sub 3}, H{sub 2}O and CH{sub 4} atmospheric profiles as a function of time. A correlated k-distribution radiative transfer model is used to calculate the radiative forcing at the tropopause of the globally-averaged atmosphere profiles. The O{sub 3} indirect GWPs vary from {approximately}27 after a 20 yr integration to {approximately}4 after 500 years, agreeing with the previous estimates to within about 10 percent. The H{sub 2}O indirect GWPs vary from {approximately}2 after a 20 yr integration to {approximately}0.3 after 500 years, and are in close agreement with other estimates. The CH{sub 4} GWPs vary from {approximately}53 at 20 yrs to {approximately}7 at 500 yrs. The 20 year CH{sub 4} GWP is {approximately}20% larger than previous estimates of the direct CH{sub 4} GWP due to a CH{sub 4} response time ({approximately}17 yrs) that is much longer than the overall lifetime (10 yrs). The increased CH{sub 4} response time results from changes in the OH abundances caused by the CH{sub 4} impulse. The CH{sub 4} radiative forcing results are consistent with IPCC values. Estimates are made of latitude effects in the radiative forcing calculations, and UV effects on the O{sub 3} radiative forcing calculations (10%).