Reappraisal of the climate impacts of ozone‐depleting substances

Geophysical Research Letters (2020)

Chloroflourocarbons and other compounds involved in ozone depletion are also powerful greenhouse gases, but their contribution to global warming is reduced due to the cooling effect of the ozone loss which they induce. Models informing an upcoming climate report disagree on the ozone loss and thus on the climate influence of these gases.

Here we use observed ozone loss to reduce the resultant uncertainty in their overall climate influence and infer a smaller warming influence of these substances than was considered likely in a 2013 climate report.

The result implies a smaller benefit to climate due to their phase‐out, mandated under the Montreal Protocol, than what was previously thought.