Response of the global climate to changes in atmospheric chemical composition due to fossil fuel burning

Abstract

Recent modeling of atmospheric chemical processes (Logan et al., 1978; Hameed et al., 1979) suggests that tropospheric ozone and methane might significantly increase in the future as the result of increasing anthropogenic emissions of CO, NO x , and CH 4 due to fossil fuel burning. Since O 3 and CH 4 are both greenhouse gases, increases in their concentrations could augment global warming due to larger future amounts of atmospheric CO 2 . To test the possible climatic impact of changes in tropospheric chemical composition, a zonal energy‐balance climate model has been combined with a vertically averaged tropospheric chemical model. The latter model includes all relevant chemical reactions which affect species derived from H 2 O, O 2 , CH 4 , and NO x . The climate model correspondingly incorporates changes in the infrared heating of the surface‐troposphere system resulting from chemically induced changes in tropospheric ozone and methane. This coupled climate‐chemical model indicates that global climate is sensitive to changes in emissions of CO, NO x , and CH 4 , and that future increases in these emissions could augment global warming due to increasing atmospheric CO 2 .