Indirect global warming effects of ozone and stratospheric water vapor induced by surface methane emission

Methane has indirect effects on climate due to chemical interactions as well as direct radiative forcing effects as a greenhouse gas. We have calculated the indirect, time-varying tropospheric radiative forcing and GWP of O{sub 3} and stratospheric H{sub 2}O due to an impulse of CH{sub 4}. This impulse, applied to the lowest layer of the atmosphere, is the increase of the atmospheric mass of CH{sub 4} resulting from a 25 percent steady state increase in the current emissions as a function of latitude. The direct CH{sub 4} radiative forcing and GWP are also calculated. The LLNL 2-D radiative-chemistry-transport model is used to evaluate the resulting changes in the O{sub 3}, H{sub 2}O and CH{sub 4} atmospheric profiles as a function of time. A correlated k-distribution radiative transfer model is used to calculate the radiative forcing at the tropopause of the globally-averaged atmosphere profiles. The O{sub 3} indirect GWPs vary from {approximately}27 after a 20 yr integration to {approximately}4 after 500 years, agreeing with the previous estimates to within about 10 percent. The H{sub 2}O indirect GWPs vary from {approximately}2 after a 20 yr integration to {approximately}0.3 after 500 years, and are in close agreement with other estimates. The CH{sub 4}more » GWPs vary from {approximately}53 at 20 yrs to {approximately}7 at 500 yrs. The 20 year CH{sub 4} GWP is {approximately}20% larger than previous estimates of the direct CH{sub 4} GWP due to a CH{sub 4} response time ({approximately}17 yrs) that is much longer than the overall lifetime (10 yrs). The increased CH{sub 4} response time results from changes in the OH abundances caused by the CH{sub 4} impulse. The CH{sub 4} radiative forcing results are consistent with IPCC values. Estimates are made of latitude effects in the radiative forcing calculations, and UV effects on the O{sub 3} radiative forcing calculations (10%).« less