Researchers at the University of Toronto have discovered a new greenhouse gas that has the highest impact on global warming to date.
Called perfluorotributylamine, the man-made compound has been an unregulated staple in the electrical industry since the mid-20th century. Researchers found it to be the most "radiatively-efficient chemical" to date, which means it is highly efficient in damaging the atmosphere. As these chemicals clog the environment and break down its various layers, they open the doors to global warming, according to a release.
Chemical structure of PFTBA. National Institute of Standards and Technology.
So just how destructive is PFTBA? It dwarfs the impact of carbon dioxide, which is the most important greenhouse gas that results in human-induced climate change.
"PFTBA is extremely long-lived in the atmosphere," said Angela Hong, one of the university researchers, in a release. "Calculated over a 100-year timeframe, a single molecule of PFTBA has the equivalent climate impact as 7,100 molecules of CO2."
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However, the current concentration of PFTBA is almost nonexistent when compared with that of carbon dioxide.
Drew Shindell, a climatologist at NASA's Goddard Institute for Space Studies, told The Guardian, "This is a warning to us that this gas could have a very very large impact on climate change -– if there were a lot of it. Since there is not a lot of it now, we don't have to worry about it at present, but we have to make sure it doesn't grow and become a very large contributor to global warming."
Since there aren't any known ways to destroy PFTBA in the lower atmosphere, its lifespan can stretch to hundreds of years until it is eventually destroyed in the upper atmosphere.
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