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AP®︎/College Environmental science

Lesson 2: Greenhouse effect

Greenhouse effect

Several factors influence how much a given greenhouse gas contributes to global warming, as shown in the table below.

	Global warming potential ( $100$ ‍ years)	Residence time (years)	Concentration (ppmv)
Carbon dioxide $(CO_{2})$ ‍	$1$ ‍	$5 - 200$ ‍	$449$ ‍
Methane $(CH_{4})$ ‍	$28$ ‍	$12.4$ ‍	$1.7 - 1.8$ ‍
Nitrous oxide $(N_{2} O)$ ‍	$265$ ‍	$121$ ‍	$1.869$ ‍
Trichlorofluoromethane $(CFCl_{3})$ ‍	$4,750$ ‍	$45$ ‍	$0.00022$ ‍

Which greenhouse gas has the highest energy storage potential?

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