Greenhouse gases are atmospheric constituents that absorb and emit infrared radiation, thereby contributing to the greenhouse effect and Earth’s radiative energy balance. Major greenhouse gases include carbon dioxide (CO₂), methane (CH₄), nitrous oxide (N₂O), ozone (O₃), and various halogenated compounds, along with water vapour (H₂O) as a feedback agent. Their radiative forcing depends on concentration, spectral absorption properties, atmospheric lifetime, and overlap with other absorbers. In climate research, greenhouse gases are quantified via metrics such as global warming potential and effective radiative forcing to assess their contribution to anthropogenic climate change and to inform emissions mitigation strategies.
For decades, scientists have generally thought that rivers emit more carbon dioxide, a greenhouse gas, than they take in. But a new analysis of every river network in the contiguous United States—including underrepresented ...
Earth Sciences
Nov 6, 2025
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Countries around the world have been discussing the need to rein in climate change for three decades, yet global greenhouse gas emissions—and global temperatures with them—keep rising.
Environment
Nov 6, 2025
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20
Techniques to reflect an additional small portion of sunlight back into space could help cool the planet if deployed globally, but they cannot address the full range of climate impacts or replace emission cuts, according ...
Earth Sciences
Nov 5, 2025
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27
India is the world's most populous country, the third-biggest emitter of greenhouse gases, and remains deeply dependent on polluting coal to meet soaring energy demand.
Environment
Nov 5, 2025
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Microorganisms in the Black Sea can produce large amounts of the potent greenhouse gas nitrous oxide (N2O). However, this gas never reaches the atmosphere because it is swiftly consumed by other microorganisms, which convert ...
Earth Sciences
Nov 4, 2025
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36
In a new study published in Global Change Biology, Prof. Zhang Yuanming's team from the Xinjiang Institute of Ecology and Geography of the Chinese Academy of Sciences has unveiled a previously underestimated factor in greenhouse ...
Earth Sciences
Nov 4, 2025
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26
China has just unveiled a new set of climate targets that will shape the pace of global decarbonization for years to come. As the United States steps back from climate leadership, the world's attention has turned to China—the ...
Environment
Nov 4, 2025
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16
As of 2027, new satellites for CO2 measurement (CO2M) will be launched into orbit. Originally, only two were planned—but simulations by Empa convinced the European Commission to have a third satellite built. This will significantly ...
Environment
Nov 4, 2025
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26
Cities around the world are working to limit emissions of climate-warming greenhouse gases, but there have been few ways of measuring whether those gases are actually decreasing in any given municipality. In new research, ...
Earth Sciences
Nov 3, 2025
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Greenhouse gas emissions from many wastewater treatment plants may be more than twice as large as previously thought. This is shown in a new study from Linköping University, where the researchers used drones with specially ...
Environment
Oct 30, 2025
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