Man-made industrial chemicals

Causes: Man-made industrial chemicals

Image: Nicholas Hippert

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

Summary

Sulphur hexafluoride (SF₆), has a global warming potential (GWP) 22,200 times more powerful that of CO₂. And it’s increasing (Video & Fig. 1).

CFCs, HCFCs, HFCs, PFCs and others (Fig. 2) are man-made chemicals with a global warming potential many thousands of times that of CO_2.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.)

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

Summary

Sulphur hexafluoride (SF₆), has a global warming potential (GWP) 22,200 times more powerful that of CO₂. And it’s increasing (Video & Fig. 1).

CFCs, HCFCs, HFCs, PFCs and others (Fig. 2) are man-made chemicals with a global warming potential many thousands of times that of CO_2.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.)

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)

More information

Explainer: What is the 'global warming potential'?

Global Warming Potential (GWP):

Is the heat absorbed by any greenhouse gas in the atmosphere, as a multiple of the heat that would be absorbed by the same mass of carbon dioxide (CO₂). This is sometimes written as eCO₂ or e-CO₂.

Click here to learn about the main forcings and how they work (links to a page on this site).

References and further reading
Ministry for the Environment: New Zealand’s Greenhouse Gas Inventory 1990–2017 Vol 1; Chapters 1-15
Ministry for the Environment: New Zealand’s Greenhouse Gas Inventory 1990–2017: graphic
Ministry for the Environment: 2019 Measuring Emissions: A Guide for Organisations
Ministry for the Environment: 2019 Measuring Emissions: A Guide for Organisations. 2019 Summary of Emission Factors
Ministry for the Environment: New Zealand’s Greenhouse Gas Inventory
NOAA: Global Monitoring Laboratory Earth System Research Laboratories
2019 IPCC: Refinement to the 2006 IPCC Guidelines for National Greenhouse Gas Inventories
2018 IPCC: Chapter 4, Atmospheric Chemistry and Greenhouse Gases
2013 IPPC: Chapter 8: Anthropogenic and Natural Radiative Forcing in: Climate Change 2013: The Physical Science Basis. Contribution of Working Group I to the Fifth Assessment Report of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change

References and further reading
Ministry for the Environment: New Zealand’s Greenhouse Gas Inventory 1990–2017 Vol 1; Chapters 1-15
Ministry for the Environment: New Zealand’s Greenhouse Gas Inventory 1990–2017: graphic
Ministry for the Environment: 2019 Measuring Emissions: A Guide for Organisations
Ministry for the Environment: 2019 Measuring Emissions: A Guide for Organisations. 2019 Summary of Emission Factors
Ministry for the Environment: New Zealand’s Greenhouse Gas Inventory
NOAA: Global Monitoring Laboratory Earth System Research Laboratories
2019 IPCC: Refinement to the 2006 IPCC Guidelines for National Greenhouse Gas Inventories
2018 IPCC: Chapter 4, Atmospheric Chemistry and Greenhouse Gases
2013 IPPC: Chapter 8: Anthropogenic and Natural Radiative Forcing in: Climate Change 2013: The Physical Science Basis. Contribution of Working Group I to the Fifth Assessment Report of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change

Causes

Man-made industrial chemicals

Summary

Causes

Summary

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

More information

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