Greenhouse Gas Molecules

George Lisensky, Beloit College

This is an interactive table with a comprehensive list of 29 greenhouse gases, their molecular structures, a chart showing a time series of their atmospheric concentrations (at several sampling sites), their global warming potential (GWP) and their atmospheric lifetimes. References are given to the data sets that range from the mid-1990s to 2008.

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Notes from our reviewers

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This web page can best be used as a resource within a unit about greenhouse gases.
While the basic information about the molecules is important to have in one place, the real value of this resource is the visualization of the atmospheric concentrations of most greenhouse gases over several decades, from several sampling sites. These different charts are presented as individual frames in QuickTime movies, making it easy to move among the different graphs. Comment from expert scientist: Good visualization of greenhouse gas molecules. Good illustration of time series of molecule concentrations in atmosphere, including variability among different locations on Earth.
Because of the interactive nature of the molecular structures (using the interactive web browser applet, Jmol) and movie frames of atmospheric concentrations, students should be stimulated to ask a lot of questions with a little prompting. Educators will have to provide background for this resource. Unfortunately, there is no teacher's guide provided.