Non-CO2 Greenhouse Gases

Abstract

In the past decades, accurate and precise atmospheric measurements of radiatively active gases have been crucial in revealing the rapid and unceasing growth of their global concentrations that has been long recognized as the main driver of climate change. Even if carbon dioxide is the major anthropogenic contributor to radiative forcing, other gases such as methane, nitrous oxide, and halogenated gases are extremely relevant in climate issues because of their very high global warming potential. Continuous measurement programs of these gases are carried out at CMN in the frame of important international programs. This chapter reports an overview of the scientific results obtained based on 15 years of atmospheric measurements. These results have been achieved combining atmospheric data with different modeling approaches, with the aim of understanding the budget of these radiatively active gases and providing emission estimates at the regional scale. Such estimates constitute an important support to improve bottom-up emission data that each country is required to submit every year in the frame of the most important international global protocols aimed at combatting climate change.