Global Warming Potential (GWP) is an index to measure of how much infrared thermal radiation a greenhouse gas would absorb over a given time frame after it has been added to the atmosphere (or emitted to the atmosphere). The GWP makes different greenhouse gases comparable with regards to their "effectiveness in causing radiative forcing".^[1]: 2232 It is expressed as a multiple of the radiation that would be absorbed by the same mass of added carbon dioxide (CO₂), which is taken as a reference gas. Therefore, the GWP has a value of 1 for CO₂. For other gases it depends on how strongly the gas absorbs infrared thermal radiation, how quickly the gas leaves the atmosphere, and the time frame being considered.

For example, methane has a GWP over 20 years (GWP-20) of 81.2^[2] meaning that, for example, a leak of a tonne of methane is equivalent to emitting 81.2 tonnes of carbon dioxide measured over 20 years. As methane has a much shorter atmospheric lifetime than carbon dioxide, its GWP is much less over longer time periods, with a GWP-100 of 27.9 and a GWP-500 of 7.95.^{[2]: 7SM-24}

The carbon dioxide equivalent (CO₂e or CO₂eq or CO₂-e) can be calculated from the GWP. For any gas, it is the mass of CO₂ that would warm the earth as much as the mass of that gas. Thus it provides a common scale for measuring the climate effects of different gases. It is calculated as GWP times mass of the other gas.

The global warming potential (GWP) is defined as an "index measuring the radiative forcing following an emission of a unit mass of a given substance, accumulated over a chosen time horizon, relative to that of the reference substance, carbon dioxide (CO2). The GWP thus represents the combined effect of the differing times these substances remain in the atmosphere and their effectiveness in causing radiative forcing."^[1]: 2232

In turn, radiative forcing is a scientific concept used to quantify and compare the external drivers of change to Earth's energy balance.^[3]: 1–4 Radiative forcing is the change in energy flux in the atmosphere caused by natural or anthropogenic factors of climate change as measured in watts per meter squared.^[4]

The global warming potential (GWP) depends on both the efficiency of the molecule as a greenhouse gas and its atmospheric lifetime. GWP is measured relative to the same mass of CO₂ and evaluated for a specific timescale.^[6] Thus, if a gas has a high (positive) radiative forcing but also a short lifetime, it will have a large GWP on a 20-year scale but a small one on a 100-year scale. Conversely, if a molecule has a longer atmospheric lifetime than CO₂ its GWP will increase when the timescale is considered. Carbon dioxide is defined to have a GWP of 1 over all time periods.

Methane has an atmospheric lifetime of 12 ± 2 years.^{[7]: Table 7.15} The 2021 IPCC report lists the GWP as 83 over a time scale of 20 years, 30 over 100 years and 10 over 500 years.^{[7]: Table 7.15} A 2014 analysis, however, states that although methane's initial impact is about 100 times greater than that of CO₂, because of the shorter atmospheric lifetime, after six or seven decades, the impact of the two gases is about equal, and from then on methane's relative role continues to decline.^[8] The decrease in GWP at longer times is because methane decomposes to water and CO₂ through chemical reactions in the atmosphere.

Examples of the atmospheric lifetime and GWP relative to CO₂ for several greenhouse gases are given in the following table:

Estimates of GWP values over 20, 100 and 500 years are periodically compiled and revised in reports from the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change. The most recent report is the IPCC Sixth Assessment Report (Working Group I) from 2023.^[7]

The IPCC lists many other substances not shown here.^[11][7] Some have high GWP but only a low concentration in the atmosphere.

The values given in the table assume the same mass of compound is analyzed; different ratios will result from the conversion of one substance to another. For instance, burning methane to carbon dioxide would reduce the global warming impact, but by a smaller factor than 25:1 because the mass of methane burned is less than the mass of carbon dioxide released (ratio 1:2.74).^[12] For a starting amount of 1 tonne of methane, which has a GWP of 25, after combustion there would be 2.74 tonnes of CO₂, each tonne of which has a GWP of 1. This is a net reduction of 22.26 tonnes of GWP, reducing the global warming effect by a ratio of 25:2.74 (approximately 9 times).

When calculating the GWP of a greenhouse gas, the value depends on the following factors:

• the absorption of infrared radiation by the given gas
• the time horizon of interest (integration period)
• the atmospheric lifetime of the gas

A high GWP correlates with a large infrared absorption and a long atmospheric lifetime. The dependence of GWP on the wavelength of absorption is more complicated. Even if a gas absorbs radiation efficiently at a certain wavelength, this may not affect its GWP much, if the atmosphere already absorbs most radiation at that wavelength. A gas has the most effect if it absorbs in a "window" of wavelengths where the atmosphere is fairly transparent. The dependence of GWP as a function of wavelength has been found empirically and published as a graph.^[28]

Because the GWP of a greenhouse gas depends directly on its infrared spectrum, the use of infrared spectroscopy to study greenhouse gases is centrally important in the effort to understand the impact of human activities on global climate change.

Just as radiative forcing provides a simplified means of comparing the various factors that are believed to influence the climate system to one another, global warming potentials (GWPs) are one type of simplified index based upon radiative properties that can be used to estimate the potential future impacts of emissions of different gases upon the climate system in a relative sense. GWP is based on a number of factors, including the radiative efficiency (infrared-absorbing ability) of each gas relative to that of carbon dioxide, as well as the decay rate of each gas (the amount removed from the atmosphere over a given number of years) relative to that of carbon dioxide.^[29]

The radiative forcing capacity (RF) is the amount of energy per unit area, per unit time, absorbed by the greenhouse gas, that would otherwise be lost to space. It can be expressed by the formula:

$${\displaystyle {\mathit {RF}}=\sum _{i=1}^{100}{\text{abs}}_{i}\cdot F_{i}/\left({\text{l}}\cdot {\text{d}}\right)}$$

where the subscript i represents a wavenumber interval of 10 inverse centimeters. Abs_i represents the integrated infrared absorbance of the sample in that interval, and F_i represents the RF for that interval.^{[citation needed]}

The Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) provides the generally accepted values for GWP, which changed slightly between 1996 and 2001, except for methane, which had its GWP almost doubled. An exact definition of how GWP is calculated is to be found in the IPCC's 2001 Third Assessment Report.^[30] The GWP is defined as the ratio of the time-integrated radiative forcing from the instantaneous release of 1 kg of a trace substance relative to that of 1 kg of a reference gas:

$${\displaystyle {\mathit {GWP}}\left(x\right)={\frac {a_{x}}{a_{r}}}{\frac {\int _{0}^{\mathit {TH}}[x](t)\,dt}{\int _{0}^{\mathit {TH}}[r](t)\,dt}}}$$

where TH is the time horizon over which the calculation is considered; a_x is the radiative efficiency due to a unit increase in atmospheric abundance of the substance (i.e., Wm⁻² kg⁻¹) and [x](t) is the time-dependent decay in abundance of the substance following an instantaneous release of it at time t=0. The denominator contains the corresponding quantities for the reference gas (i.e. CO₂). The radiative efficiencies a_x and a_r are not necessarily constant over time. While the absorption of infrared radiation by many greenhouse gases varies linearly with their abundance, a few important ones display non-linear behaviour for current and likely future abundances (e.g., CO₂, CH₄, and N₂O). For those gases, the relative radiative forcing will depend upon abundance and hence upon the future scenario adopted.

Since all GWP calculations are a comparison to CO₂ which is non-linear, all GWP values are affected. Assuming otherwise as is done above will lead to lower GWPs for other gases than a more detailed approach would. Clarifying this, while increasing CO₂ has less and less effect on radiative absorption as ppm concentrations rise, more powerful greenhouse gases like methane and nitrous oxide have different thermal absorption frequencies to CO₂ that are not filled up (saturated) as much as CO₂, so rising ppms of these gases are far more significant.

The Global Temperature change Potential (GTP) is another way to compare gases. While GWP estimates infrared thermal radiation absorbed, GTP estimates the resulting rise in average surface temperature of the world, over the next 20, 50 or 100 years, caused by a greenhouse gas, relative to the temperature rise which the same mass of CO₂ would cause.^[11] Calculation of GTP requires modelling how the world, especially the oceans, will absorb heat.^[22] GTP is published in the same IPCC tables with GWP.^[11]

GWP* has been proposed to take better account of short-lived climate pollutants (SLCP) such as methane, relating a change in the rate of emissions of SLCPs to a fixed quantity of CO₂.^[42] However GWP* has itself been criticised both for its suitability as a metric and for inherent design features which can perpetuate injustices and inequity.^[43][44][45]

• Carbon accounting
• Carbon footprint
• Emission intensity