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Global environmental implications of atmospheric methane removal through chlorine-mediated chemistry-climate interactions

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Title: Global environmental implications of atmospheric methane removal through chlorine-mediated chemistry-climate interactions
Authors: Qinyi Li, Daphne Meidan, Peter Hess, Juan A. Añel, Carlos A. Cuevas, Scott Doney, Rafael P. Fernandez, Maarten van Herpen, Lena Höglund-Isaksson, Matthew S. Johnson, Douglas E. Kinnison, Jean-François Lamarque, Thomas Röckmann, Natalie M. Mahowald, Alfonso Saiz-Lopez
Contributors: European Commission, Agencia Nacional de Promoción de la Investigación, el Desarrollo Tecnológico y la Innovación (Argentina), Agencia Estatal de Investigación (España), Universidad de Vigo, CSIC - Instituto de Química Física Blas Cabrera (IQF), Xunta de Galicia, National Science Foundation (US), Li, Qinyi [0000-0002-5146-5831], Meidan, Daphne [0000-0001-7746-4979], Añel, Juan A. [0000-0003-2448-4647], Cuevas, Carlos A. [0000-0002-9251-5460], Doney, Scott [0000-0002-3683-2437], Höglund-Isaksson, Lena [0000-0001-7514-3135], Johnson, Matthew S. [0000-0002-3645-3955], Lamarque, Jean-François [0000-0002-4225-5074], Röckmann, Thomas [0000-0002-6688-8968], Mahowald, Natalie M. [0000-0002-2873-997X], Saiz-Lopez, A. [0000-0002-0060-1581], Consejo Superior de Investigaciones Científicas [https://ror.org/02gfc7t72], Sub Atmospheric physics and chemistry, Marine and Atmospheric Research, Department of Civil and Environmental Engineering
Source: Nat Commun
Digital.CSIC. Repositorio Institucional del CSIC
Consejo Superior de Investigaciones Científicas (CSIC)
Nature Communications, Vol 14, Iss 1, Pp 1-10 (2023)
Li, Q, Meidan, D, Hess, P, Añel, J A, Cuevas, C A, Doney, S, Fernandez, R P, van Herpen, M, Höglund-Isaksson, L, Johnson, M S, Kinnison, D E, Lamarque, J F, Röckmann, T, Mahowald, N M & Saiz-Lopez, A 2023, ' Global environmental implications of atmospheric methane removal through chlorine-mediated chemistry-climate interactions ', Nature Communications, vol. 14, no. 1, 4045 . https://doi.org/10.1038/s41467-023-39794-7
Nature Communications
Publisher Information: Springer Science and Business Media LLC, 2023.
Publication Year: 2023
Subject Terms: Ozone/analysis, Atmosphere, Science, Climate, Methane/analysis, 7. Clean energy, Air Pollution/analysis, Article, Ozone, Halogens, Atmosphere/chemistry, 13. Climate action, Air Pollution, SDG 13 - Climate Action, Chlorine, Methane
Description: Atmospheric methane is both a potent greenhouse gas and photochemically active, with approximately equal anthropogenic and natural sources. The addition of chlorine to the atmosphere has been proposed to mitigate global warming through methane reduction by increasing its chemical loss. However, the potential environmental impacts of such climate mitigation remain unexplored. Here, sensitivity studies are conducted to evaluate the possible effects of increasing reactive chlorine emissions on the methane budget, atmospheric composition and radiative forcing. Because of non-linear chemistry, in order to achieve a reduction in methane burden (instead of an increase), the chlorine atom burden needs to be a minimum of three times the estimated present-day burden. If the methane removal target is set to 20%, 45%, or 70% less global methane by 2050 compared to the levels in the Representative Concentration Pathway 8.5 scenario (RCP8.5), our modeling results suggest that additional chlorine fluxes of 630, 1250, and 1880 Tg Cl/year, respectively, are needed. The results show that increasing chlorine emissions also induces significant changes in other important climate forcers. Remarkably, the tropospheric ozone decrease is large enough that the magnitude of radiative forcing decrease is similar to that of methane. Adding 630, 1250, and 1880 Tg Cl/year to the RCP8.5 scenario, chosen to have the most consistent current-day trends of methane, will decrease the surface temperature by 0.2, 0.4, and 0.6 °C by 2050, respectively. The quantity and method in which the chlorine is added, its interactions with climate pathways, and the potential environmental impacts on air quality and ocean acidity, must be carefully considered before any action is taken.
Document Type: Article
Other literature type
File Description: application/pdf; text
Language: English
ISSN: 2041-1723
DOI: 10.1038/s41467-023-39794-7
DOI: 10.13039/501100010801
DOI: 10.13039/501100000780
DOI: 10.13039/501100006761
DOI: 10.13039/501100011033
DOI: 10.13039/100000001
Access URL: https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/37422475
http://hdl.handle.net/10261/344107
https://api.elsevier.com/content/abstract/scopus_id/85164195896
https://doaj.org/article/89b4dd36a5f34af3952e8cffe06f6ad0
https://research-portal.uu.nl/en/publications/18671a49-5e67-4240-91af-50bd1e08d228
https://doi.org/10.1038/s41467-023-39794-7
https://curis.ku.dk/ws/files/370735932/s41467_023_39794_7.pdf
https://pure.iiasa.ac.at/id/eprint/18895/
https://dspace.library.uu.nl/handle/1874/433145
Rights: CC BY
URL: http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/Open Access This article is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License, which permits use, sharing, adaptation, distribution and reproduction in any medium or format, as long as you give appropriate credit to the original author(s) and the source, provide a link to the Creative Commons license, and indicate if changes were made. The images or other third party material in this article are included in the article’s Creative Commons license, unless indicated otherwise in a credit line to the material. If material is not included in the article’s Creative Commons license and your intended use is not permitted by statutory regulation or exceeds the permitted use, you will need to obtain permission directly from the copyright holder. To view a copy of this license, visit http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/ (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/) .
Accession Number: edsair.doi.dedup.....884b9e79aa985b0b21f6e9abc06f145e
Database: OpenAIRE
Description
Abstract:Atmospheric methane is both a potent greenhouse gas and photochemically active, with approximately equal anthropogenic and natural sources. The addition of chlorine to the atmosphere has been proposed to mitigate global warming through methane reduction by increasing its chemical loss. However, the potential environmental impacts of such climate mitigation remain unexplored. Here, sensitivity studies are conducted to evaluate the possible effects of increasing reactive chlorine emissions on the methane budget, atmospheric composition and radiative forcing. Because of non-linear chemistry, in order to achieve a reduction in methane burden (instead of an increase), the chlorine atom burden needs to be a minimum of three times the estimated present-day burden. If the methane removal target is set to 20%, 45%, or 70% less global methane by 2050 compared to the levels in the Representative Concentration Pathway 8.5 scenario (RCP8.5), our modeling results suggest that additional chlorine fluxes of 630, 1250, and 1880 Tg Cl/year, respectively, are needed. The results show that increasing chlorine emissions also induces significant changes in other important climate forcers. Remarkably, the tropospheric ozone decrease is large enough that the magnitude of radiative forcing decrease is similar to that of methane. Adding 630, 1250, and 1880 Tg Cl/year to the RCP8.5 scenario, chosen to have the most consistent current-day trends of methane, will decrease the surface temperature by 0.2, 0.4, and 0.6 °C by 2050, respectively. The quantity and method in which the chlorine is added, its interactions with climate pathways, and the potential environmental impacts on air quality and ocean acidity, must be carefully considered before any action is taken.
ISSN:20411723
DOI:10.1038/s41467-023-39794-7