Alternatives to the Global Warming Potential for Comparing Climate Impacts of Emissions of Greenhouse Gases

Abstract

The Global Warming Potential (GWP) is used within the Kyoto Protocol to the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change as a metric for weighting the climatic impact of emissions of different greenhouse gases. The GWP has been subjected to many criticisms because of its formulation, but nevertheless it has retained some favour because of the simplicity of its design and application, and its transparency compared to proposed alternatives. Here, two new metrics are proposed, which are based on a simple analytical climate model. The first metric is called the Global Temperature Change Potential and represents the temperature change at a given time due to a pulse emission of a gas (GTP P ); the second is similar but represents the effect of a sustained emission change (hence GTP S ). Both GTP P and GTP S are presented as relative to the temperature change due to a similar emission change of a reference gas, here taken to be carbon dioxide. Both metrics are compared against an upwelling-diffusion energy balance model that resolves land and ocean and the hemispheres. The GTP P does not perform well, compared to the energy balance model, except for long-lived gases. By contrast, the GTP S is shown to perform well relative to the energy balance model, for gases with a wide variety of lifetimes. It is also shown that for time horizons in excess of about 100 years, the GTP S and GWP produce very similar results, indicating an alternative interpretation for the GWP. The GTP S retains the advantage of the GWP in terms of transparency, and the relatively small number of input parameters required for calculation. However, it has an enhanced relevance, as it is further down the cause-effect chain of the impacts of greenhouse gases emissions and has an unambiguous interpretation. It appears to be robust to key uncertainties and simplifications in its derivation and may be an attractive alternative to the GWP.

Comparison of physically- and economically-based CO<sub>2</sub>-equivalences for methane

“…Neither the GWP, nor the GTP introduced by Shine et al (2005Shine et al ( , 2007) is a straightforward special case of Eq. (3).…”

“…Climate metrics for sustained emissions have been proposed (e.g. Shine et al, 2005) and used in some studies (e.g. Jacobson, 2002;Dessus et al, 2008).…”

“…Physically-based metrics compare the relative effects of forcing agents in terms of a physical quantity of the climate system, such as the cumulative radiative forcing in the case of the GWP or the global mean surface temperature change in the case of the global temperature change potential (GTP, Shine et al, 2005Shine et al, , 2007. Socio-economically-based metrics compare the relative costs of forcing agents on the climate system.…”

A warmer policy for a colder climate: Can China both reduce poverty and cap carbon emissions?

“…The global-mean temperature response over time is quantified for each pollutant and scenario 256 using the Absolute Global Temperature change Potential (AGTP) (Shine et al, 2005). The 257 AGTP for pollutant x is given by the radiative forcing (RF) and the temperature response 258 impulse response function (IRFT) at the time horizon H: 259…”

Life Cycle Assessment (LCA) of Light-Weight Eco-composites

“…Besides the generally accepted IPCC model, alternative metrics for assessing GHGs have been developed such as index GTP (global temperature potential) suggested by Shine et al (2005) and revised GWP formulae proposed by Fuglestvedt et al (2003).…”