Nature Communications (May 2022)

Reactive halogens increase the global methane lifetime and radiative forcing in the 21st century

  • Qinyi Li,
  • Rafael P. Fernandez,
  • Ryan Hossaini,
  • Fernando Iglesias-Suarez,
  • Carlos A. Cuevas,
  • Eric C. Apel,
  • Douglas E. Kinnison,
  • Jean-François Lamarque,
  • Alfonso Saiz-Lopez

DOI
https://doi.org/10.1038/s41467-022-30456-8
Journal volume & issue
Vol. 13, no. 1
pp. 1 – 11

Abstract

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Methane is a powerful greenhouse gas and previous studies focus on its sources with less attention on the loss. Here the authors show that reactive halogen species, not considered in climate projections, significantly reduces the methane loss, increasing its lifetime, burden, and radiative forcing.