Archive:000/Term:GWP

GWP stands for "global warming potential", and it's used to describe the relative strengths of different greenhouse gases.

Each greenhouse gas has a GWP value. It could be understood as the answer to the question: "Emitting 1 ton of [this greenhouse gas] is equivalent to emitting how many tons of CO₂?"

See the page on greenhouse gases for tables.

Also note that the use of GWP implies a standard timescale, because some gases stay longer in the atmosphere than others. If you ever find that two academic sources seem to contradict themselves on the GWP of a given gas, it's probably because they each specify different timescales. The most commonly used timescale is 100 years (why)While it's probably worth considering longer-term timescales, climate change is currently close to a tipping point, so shorter-term emissions matter more right now.. This could be written unambiguously as GWP₁₀₀.

With GWP taken into account, the greenhouse gas emissions of anything can be measured in CO_2eq.