NOAA’s observations help inform U.S. greenhouse gas emissions reporting for hydrofluorocarbons

A snapshot of a time series graph from the new report. Credit: EPA

For the first time, the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) has included a comparison of NOAA’s atmospheric emission estimates of four hydrofluorocarbons (HFCs) to its own inventory-based estimates in the just-released U.S. Inventory of Greenhouse Gas Emissions and Sinks, based on results first reported in the 2017 Geophysical Research Letters study by a team of NOAA, CIRES, and EPA scientists.

Commonly used in air conditioning and refrigeration, HFCs were developed as substitutes for ozone-destroying chemicals. As the phase-out of ozone-destroying refrigerants proceeds, HFC emissions and atmospheric concentrations have increased dramatically in recent years.

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