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Causes: Man-made industrial chemicals

Image: Nicholas Hippert

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Man-made industrial chemicals

Summary

  • CFCs, HCFCs, HFCs, PFCs and others (Fig. 2) are man-made chemicals with a global warming potential many thousands of times that of CO2 and the amount in the atmosphere is increasing (Fig. 3). Some contribute to the loss of the ozone layer. They have been linked to why the Arctic and Antarctic regions are warming faster than anywhere else on Earth.
  • Collectively, they contribute 2.4% to NZ’s emissions.
Fig. 1: Sulphur hexafluoride atmospheric concentrations 1994-2024. (Image: NOAA Global Monitoring Lab.)
Fig. 1: Sulphur hexafluoride atmospheric concentrations 1994-2024. (Image: NOAA Global Monitoring Lab.)

  Causes

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Home > Climate wiki > What causes climate change? > Greenhouse gases > Man-made industrial chemicals

Summary

  • CFCs, HCFCs, HFCs, PFCs and others (Fig. 2) are man-made chemicals with a global warming potential many thousands of times that of CO2 and the amount in the atmosphere is increasing (Fig. 3). Some contribute to the loss of the ozone layer. They have been linked to why the Arctic and Antarctic regions are warming faster than anywhere else on Earth.
  • Collectively, they contribute 2.4% to NZ’s emissions.
Fig. 1: Sulphur hexafluoride atmospheric concentrations 1994-2024. (Image: NOAA Global Monitoring Lab.)
Fig. 1: Sulphur hexafluoride atmospheric concentrations 1994-2024. (Image: NOAA Global Monitoring Lab.)

SF6, CFCs, HCFCs, HFCs, PFCs, and others

Fig. 2: Chemical that contribute to warming the atmosphere (2020). Click on the image to be taken to the NOAA page to see the latest measurements. (Image: NOAA Global Monitoring Laboratory)
Fig. 2: Chemical that contribute to warming the atmosphere (2020). Click on the image to be taken to the NOAA page to see the latest measurements. (Image: NOAA Global Monitoring Laboratory)

SF6, CFCs, HCFCs, HFCs, PFCs, and others

Fig. 3: The heat that GHGs contribute to warming is measured in watts/ square metre. This graph shows that while the main contributors are carbon dioxide (red) and methane (orange), nitrous oxide (green) man-made industrial chemicals GHGs (grey, blue, pink) are increasing. Image: rCraig009 based on data from NOAA).
Fig. 3: The heat that GHGs contribute to warming is measured in watts/ square metre. This graph shows that while the main contributors are carbon dioxide (red) and methane (orange), nitrous oxide (green) man-made industrial chemicals GHGs (grey, blue, pink) are increasing. Image: rCraig009 based on data from NOAA).

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