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Although it is usually simplified by saying "carbon" or "carbon dioxide", the fact is that greenhouse gases that cause climate change and global warming are several and very different. There are more harmful than carbon dioxide or, for short, CO2. And there are those that remain more or less time in the atmosphere. CO2 is the paradigm because it is the most abundant. In this Green Ecologist article, we answer the question of how long greenhouse gases stay in the atmosphere.
The greenhouse effect
The four main greenhouse gases are carbon dioxide (CO2), the methane (CH, nitrous oxide (N2O) and halocarbons or CFC (gases containing fluorine, chlorine and bromine). These gases remain in the atmosphere for a certain period of time that can go from a few months to thousands of years. But it should be noted that, as long as they remain in the atmosphere, they will be affecting the climate.
The reduction of carbon dioxide (CO is essential in the fight against climate change because it is the one that humans produce the most with their activities. It is, moreover, probably the most difficult to determine, since there are some processes that eliminate carbon dioxide carbon from the atmosphere (the best known, the absorption of plants to carry out photosynthesis).
Chemical weathering
Between 65% and 80% of CO2 released into the atmosphere dissolves in the ocean and remains there for a period of between twenty and two hundred years. The rest is slowly eliminated, thanks to processes that can last hundreds of thousands of years, processes such as chemical weathering or the formation of rocks. Ultimately, once it is in the atmosphere, carbon dioxide can continue to affect the climate for thousands of years.
The methane, instead, it disappears from the atmosphere by chemical reaction, although persists for about twelve years. Thus, although methane is a very powerful greenhouse gas, its effect is relatively short-lived.
The nitrous oxide accumulates in the stratosphere and disappears from the atmosphere more slowly than methane, since persists for over a hundred years.
Compounds containing chlorine or fluorine
Finally, the compounds containing chlorine or fluorine (CFC, HCFC, HFC, PFC) have different behaviors: they can be in the atmosphere from less than a year to thousands of years. The IPCC (Intergovernmental Panel to Combat Climate Change) has published an extensive list indicating how long CFCs and other greenhouse gases remain in the atmosphere.
Water vapor also affects climate, but it is seen as part of a kind of feedback loop and not a direct cause of climate change. It is released thanks to the rain and snow.
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