Abstract
Methyl chloride (MC) is the major natural source of chlorine in the stratosphere. The production of MC is dominated by biological sources from the oceans but it also has smaller anthropogenic sources, such as biomass burning. Production has a seasonal cycle which couples with the shorter lifetime of tropospheric MC to produce nonuniform global mixing. As an absorber of infrared radiation, MC, is of interest for its potential affect on the trospheric energy balance as well as for its chemical interactions. In this study, we estimate the radiative forcing and global warming potential (GWP) of MC. Our calculations use an infrared radiative transfer model based on the correlated k-distribution algorithm for band absorption. A radiative forcing value of 0.0053 W/m2/ppbv was obtained for MC and is approximately linear in the background abundance. The value is about 3% of the forcing of CFC-11 and about 300 times the forcing of CO2. The radiative forcing calculation for MC is used to estimate the GWP of MC. The results give GWPs for MC of about 30 at a time of 20 years. This result indicated that while MC has a GWP similar to methane, the emission rates are too low to meaningfully contribute to atmospheric greenhouse heating effects.
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