SANTA CRUZ DE TENERIFE. The levels of the most important greenhouse gases well mixed effect, which are carbon dioxide (CO2), methane (CH4) and nitrous oxide (N2O) are the highest in the last 800,000 years.
That told Efe physical Angel Gomez , the Izana Atmospheric Observatory in Tenerife.
The study the levels of greenhouse gases, which began in Hawaii in the fifties of the last century, is also done in Tenerife since 1984, and as for the data on before that date, are known to study the air bubbles trapped in the ice of Antarctica and Greenland, Gomez said.
The greenhouse effect has always existed but increased since the industrial revolution, Gomez said, the Meteorological Agency said, adding that with this increase It occurs at the surface a temperature rise, which is slow because the deep ocean water take long to warm up.
The greenhouse gases are measured Izaña hours a day every day of the year and while nitrous oxide and sulfur hexafluoride (SF6) are studied since 2007, methane and carbon dioxide are analyzed since 1984.
Gómez explained that carbon monoxide (CO) no is a greenhouse gas, but influences the chemistry of methane, which it is, so if there are more of the former there is more of the latter.
The carbon monoxide and methane have a relatively short life in the atmosphere because it remains in the first few months and the second about nine, while the carbon dioxide is maintained for hundreds of years, nitrous oxide 120 and sulfur hexafluoride about 3200 years .
The difference between the two types of gases is important because for the first can strike a balance between emissions and destruction, in which case the gas concentration in the atmosphere remain constant, while for the latter the concentration of gas continues to grow as long as emissions.
This explains why the concentrations measured in Izaña always grow to carbon dioxide, nitrous oxide and sulfur hexafluoride, while the concentration of methane has had periods no growth, and carbon monoxide even decreases.
The expert said that the impact of emissions of gases in a moment of the future is measured by the potential change in global temperature (GTP) , based on the change Global Media Surface Temperature (GMST) caused by such emissions using reference horizons which causes carbon dioxide.
GTP to ten years horizon present emissions of methane is almost equal to that caused by emissions of carbon dioxide, but is little more than half for a twenty-year horizon, and a horizon negligible for a hundred years, since the methane emitted almost one hundred years before will have been destroyed.
However, the GTP to the current emissions of nitrous oxide remains constant in those time horizons, as its half-life is long and similar to that of carbon dioxide.
The average values of the background measured in atmosphere at 2014 showed Izaña per million molecules in the atmosphere 398.6 particles were carbon dioxide, 1.86 methane, nitrous oxide 0.3277, 0, 00000842 sulfur hexafluoride and carbon monoxide 0.0923.
The average of carbon dioxide from the last decade annual growth has been 2.1 parts per million per year, while increasing Nitrous oxide has been 0.00089 and increased sulfur hexafluoride 0.00000030.
The water vapor (H2O) is also an important greenhouse gas, but its concentration in the atmosphere varies greatly from one place to another and also in height, is determined as emissions from the evaporation of liquid water oceans, lakes and rivers, evapotranspiration of plants and soil.
The concentration depends on meteorological factors complex as temperature, wind, location of storms and anticyclones.
This gas disappears from the atmosphere through condensation in the form of liquid water clouds, which is returned to the earth’s surface as rain.
Therefore, the impact of water vapor in the greenhouse effect is taken into account as feedback: rising gas well mixed greenhouse, the temperature of the lower atmosphere, and this increase Temperature allows a greater amount of water vapor in the atmosphere can remain.
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