Greenhouse gases annual increment at Izaña Atmospheric Observatory during 2011

At Izaña Atmospheric Observatory, several greenhouse gases are measured (24 hours every day of the year) with high precision and accuracy: carbon dioxide (CO2) and methane (CH4) since 1984, and nitrous oxide (N2O and sulphur hexafluoride (SF6) since 2007.

The concentrations of these four greenhouse gases continue growing, being the measured increment in the mean concentration of each gas during 2011 respect to that of 2010: +2.36 ppm (+0.6 %) for carbon dioxide, +10.1 ppb (+0.55 %) for methane,  +1.0 ppb (+0.32 %) for nitrous oxide, and +0.29 ppt (+3.9 %) for sulphur hexafluoride.

The mean concentrations during 2011 at Izaña were: 391.95 ppm for carbon dioxide (preindustrial value: 280 ppm), 1842.3 ppb for methane (preindustrial value: 715 ppb), 324.4 ppb for nitrous oxide (preindustrial value: 270 ppb), and 7.45 ppt for sulphur hexafluoride (preindustrial value: less than 0.05 ppt).

Click on the following links to obtain the graphs with the time evolution for the different greenhouse gases measured at Izaña: carbon dioxide, methane, nitrous oxide, sulphur hexafluoride, and pdf with the 4 graphs.

To know more about these greenhouse gases, click on the following links to related news of 2011: carbon dioxide, methane, nitrous oxide, and sulphur hexafluoride.