The press release below is from the University of Copenhagen Department of Chemistry. The anesthetic gases isofluran, desflurane and sevoflurane are coming under scrutiny for global warming potential. However, what isn’t stated in the press release is this important paragraph of the scientific paper :
There are no production numbers available in the literature
for the anaesthetic agents. The three compounds have not yet been observed in the free atmosphere, and current atmospheric levels are expected to be small (of the order of part per trillion/volume). At these concentrations, when viewed in isolation, their present contribution to the relative forcing of climate change is negligible in comparison with the current forcing of 1.7 Watts/sq meter due to CO2.
Later though, even though they admit they have no numbers on the production quantity of these anaesthetic agents, and “the three compounds have not yet been observed in the free atmosphere”, they use some SWAG to make this claim:
Hence, we conclude that global emissions of inhalation anaesthetics, when measured by the 100 yr GWP, have a contribution to the radiative forcing of climate change which is comparable with that of the CO2 emissions from one coal-fired power plant or approximately 1 million passenger cars.
Gosh, more than a whole coal-fired power plant! Somebody tell China immediately so they can stop building two a week.
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Neglected greenhouse gas discovered by atmosphere chemists
When doctors want their patients asleep during surgery they gently turn the gas tap. But Anaesthetic gasses have a global warming potential as high as a refrigerant that is on its way to be banned in the EU. Yet there is no obligation to report anaesthetic gasses along with other greenhouse gasses such as CO2, refrigerants and laughing gas.
Significantly worse than CO2
One kilo of anaesthetic gas affects the climate as much as 1620 kilos of CO2. That has been shown by a recent study carried out by chemists from University of Copenhagen and NASA in collaboration with anaesthesiologists from the University of Michigan Medical School. The amount of gas needed for a single surgical procedure is not high, but in the US alone surgery related anaesthetics affected the climate as much as would one million cars.Tænk før bedøvelse
Think before you gas them
Analyses of the anaesthetics were carried out by Ole John Nielsen. He is a Professor of atmospheric chemistry at the University of Copenhagen, and he’s got an important message for doctors.
“We studied three different gasses in regular use for anaesthesia, and they’re not equally harmful,” explains Professor Nielsen.
All three are worse than CO2 but where the mildest ones Isoflurane and Sevoflurane have global warming potentials of 210 and 510 respectively, Desflurane the most harmful will cause 1620 times as much global warming as an equal amount of CO2, explains the professor.
“This ought to make anaesthesiologists sit up and take notice. If all three compounds have equal therapeutic worth, there is every reason to choose the one with the lowest global warming potential”, says professor Ole John Nielsen.
Inspired by maternity ward
The three anaesthetic gasses isofluran, desflurane and sevoflurane were studied at the Ford atmospheric laboratories in Michigan. Mads Andersen of NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratories collaborated on the analyses with his former PhD supervisor Ole John Nielsen. He relates how he got the idea for the study while his wife was giving birth.
“The anaesthesiologist told me, that the gas used is what we chemist know as a halogenated compound. That’s the same family of compound as the Freon that was famously eating the ozone layer back in the eighties” says research scientist Mads Andersen.
On the map with ozone eaters replacement
Freon is a compound that Andersen knows well. It got his supervisor Professor Nielsen on the scientific map. With a global warming potential of a whopping 11.000 the refrigerant Freon has been banned all over the world since 1992. When the search was on for an alternative to the harmful substance Nielsen analysed just how much heat was retained by new compounds, and how long they would stay in the atmosphere. His methods went to prove, that the refrigerant HFC134a had a global warming potential of 1.300 and left the atmosphere in just 14 years to freons 50 to 100 years.Det gode viger pladsen for det endnu bedre
HFC-134a has spared the atmosphere a considerable climate effect. But it too is being prohibited all across the European Union. And unless therapeutic arguments speak for using all three, sevoflurane should be the only legal anaesthetic gas as shown by the study done by NASA, Ford and the Department of Chemistry at the University of Copenhagen.
The study was published in the renowned medical journal “British Journal of Anaestecia”.
PDF of original science paper here
CO2 is a GHG. H2O is a GHG. CH4 is a GHG. I’ll have to wait and see if I get the Gilbert Atmospheric Chemistry set for Christmas but I would venture to guess that virtually any volatile hydrocarbon acts like a GHG. You know…propane, butane, pentane, methanol, diethyl ether and even…ethanol. Gee…I wonder how many tons of ethanol vapor are released into the atmosphere each year just from fermentation, distillation and spilled or unburnt motor fuel. In terms of sheer volume it seems like this would be a more sensible thing to study rather than a few volatile anesthetic agents.
This makes an engineer’s blood boil. You mean to say you do study like this and don’t even have an educated guess about how much of this stuff is used – heck they are chemists and there are sources of this info for them. Hell count the number of operations taking place in Denmark, divide the western world population by D’s population and multiply by the No of ops in D. then add 50% for the rest of the world. Maybe when they get the coal fired plants shut off we’ll be so cold we won’t need freezing for our teeth, appendices, etc. Hey it would boost the alcohol and cocaine demand but that would likely generate more CO2.
It is pretty obvious to me that *anything* that results in an improvement in the human condition, particularly in the Western hemisphere, is under direct attack by these people. They must destroy families economically, then destroy their health care. These are truly despicable people.
Yes, they were right when they warned that it would soon get “much worse than we thought”.
The idea seems to be, to keep ratching up the nonesense until even politicans cannot keep a stright face.
Unfortunately, that may take some time yet.
Judd says:
December 5, 2010 at 4:10 pm
“Where to begin with this? So now climate ‘scientists’ are to advise doctors? Cool. Perhaps they could advise marriage counselors too. […]”
LOL! Wouldn’t surprise me at all if that’s next. After that, perhaps they’ll advise podiatrists or sex therapists?
H.R. says: December 5, 2010 at 6:30 pm
But HR that is exactly what is being done. The author of the paper had a ‘light bulb’ thought http://simple.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lightbulb
while his wife was in labour. I wasn’t clear whether this was a vaginal delivery (presumably hard work) or a caesarean section that e(a)ffected his consciousness? Guess he had to convert one of two options:- enormous pressure and effort per square cm of human orifice or a dissection of the female lower abdominal musculature structure to something ‘useful’ …. ahhh ……the next grant?
God help us all if he gets into breast ……milk.
Gary Pearse says: December 5, 2010 at 5:22 pm
Many women do not have operations for child birth. Queen Victoria did not, the apparent first candiate for gas in labour.
Hence the insidiousness of the paper – an attack on obstetricians (mostly male) who have had to take extraordinary insurance. And the fascist feminists who want to return to tribal birthing practices.
Shheesh ….in Australia they had an anthropologist that made the women rebury their placentas pretending some b***sh**t early day practice of connection to mother earth. Google placentas and see the recipes for cooking and eating them in the ‘modern society’.
The posts on bronchodilators etc were informative, thank you. It is instructive that asthma has been presented as one of the foremost respiratory diseases in the developed world (and a horrifying issue for the child and parent(s) in an emergency ward) rather than the wood fuelled/dreid animal crap ‘kitchen’ environments for the billions of women and children.
Do Danish peoples need an new economy outside of Neils Bohr and their expertise in dairy products and excellent furniture now that windpower has been discredited? Stick with cartoons I say.
Very simple solution to all of these draconian measures to save the planet: you first.
Some want to see suicides or doing without light bulbs or whatever.
The person advocating the steps involved should be the first to go.
On the subject of light bulbs, look at what is going on in Europe:
First, the ban: http://www.nytimes.com/2009/09/01/business/energy-environment/01iht-bulb.html
Then, the consequences: http://www.thelocal.de/national/20101204-31563.html
It gets worse. Now the impact on beer: http://www.thelocal.de/national/20101204-31563.html
My solution? Stock up on incandescent light bulbs and beer. That way you can weather the environmental hysteria we’re going through with safe lights and beer.
Anthony, important point:
The entire figure at the top of the post is from a computer model, not from observations!
Ralph says:
December 5, 2010 at 12:15 pm
I’m telling you all right now, the CO2 in beer and soda pop are in the warmers sight as the next threat to the Earth.
Only if a BIG company has a new patent on a replacement gas…..
What’s YOUR Isofluran footprint??
The first graph in the OP might be misleading as it makes it appear that CO2 is playing a dominant role. For one thing in the bit absorption region at 15um where the label shows only CO2, H2O is also a significant absorber over half that range. A less misleading label would have CO2/H2O around 15um. The other misleading factor is that the spectrum is cut off on the left at 20um which excludes nearly half the total radiative power. H2O dominates in the excluded portion of the spectrum.
Well I hate to be nit picky. But first of all could I ask a question. Is that Top Graph a COMPUTER CALCULATION or is it an ACTUAL MEASUREMENT FROM A SATELLITE ???
But back to picking the nits.
Read that graph again very closely. The vertical axis, is SPECTRAL RADIANCE !! mWm^-2.sr^-1.cm
It is NOT SPECTRAL RADIANT EMITTANCE !! W.m^-2/micron (or um^-1)
So why do they have the wavelength increment on the top (m) rather than as a divisor (m^-1); well I guess they are plotting versus wave numbers.; but is their final unit (m) the inverse wave number, or is it the wavelength (microns or um).
If you plot the standard spectral curves versus WAVELENGTH then you find a totally different curve (for spectral radiant emitance) and the peak of that is at about 10.1 microns (288 K) and it is the narrow ozo0ne dip that sits on the peak, rather than the wider CO2 dip. There are dozens of graphs of that in the Infra-Red Handbook.
True or false, this is a graph deliberately chosen to grossly exaggerate the effect of CO2.
Note that the definition of Radiance basically applies to a NEAR POINT SOURCE; that’s that per steradian part of the units.
But you see there is absolutely no angular distribution pattern to go along with this phony Radiance plot; so iy is impossible from that graph to figure out what total energy is being emitted from any area of the earth.
Years a go; the whole LED industry used to specify LED “brightness” in terms of “Luminance”, and each manufacturer used microphotometers to focus in on a very “hot spot” immediately adjacent to the bonding pad metal, where the “brightness” was always maximum. That was almost impossible for customers to verify; then we got sane, and all agreed that Luminous Intensity in Candelas was a better merit factor, and easy for customers to verify.
Without an angular distribution plot, a spectral radiance graph is somewhat worthless for energy calculations.
To measure Spectral Radiant Emittance; you have to collect the radiation over a complete hemisphere of solid angle from a fixed surface area; so that takes an integrating sphere big enough to contain the whole surface element area within the entrance aperture of the integrating sphere.
Good luck on doing that from a satellite.
http://www.nzherald.co.nz/environment/news/article.cfm?c_id=39&objectid=10691794
Just a note to some of the posts above, Antarctic Ozone Hole, smallest in 5 years.
Well I see the problem with that graph; the “spectral” part of the units, instead of bing per micron (of wavelength) is per wave number; so at 14.7 microns you have smaller counts of wave numbers, than at 4 microns wavelength.
Sneaky way to distort the impression.
I have never seen a solar spectrum graph plotted on a wave number scale. Presumably the peak of that graph no longer falls at 500 nm wavelength.
“”””” PaulM says:
December 6, 2010 at 2:24 am
Anthony, important point:
The entire figure at the top of the post is from a computer model, not from observations! “””””
Well thanks for that information Paul, and I agree with your sense of disgust; well at least I feel a sense of disgust.
I was almost ready to declare it to be computer generated; and the tip off was that little up spike in the middle of both the CO2 and Ozone dips, as that seems to be a product of the computer calculations; something related to the vibration mode frequencies.
I wish we could cut and paste graphs here, because I could post tome of the ones fromt eh IR Handbook, showing how totally differnet it looks on a wavelength scale, and a Radiant Emittance rather than Radiance basis.
“”””” DocMartyn says:
December 5, 2010 at 3:07 pm
Wien’s displacement law states that at 290K a blackbody has its peak at 9.99 micrometers, which is not the case in the figure. “””””
Well that is true for a graph plotted on a wave number scale, and calibrated in radiance per wave number rather than Radiant emitteance per wavelength.
You should also note that on a the photon count goes as T^3 rather than T^4
Jack Simmons says: December 6, 2010 at 1:18 am
I don’t think there’ll be beer for you my friend………………………………………………….
“While much of this effort has gone under the radar of the Cancan’t commentariat, it is a vital element of the global response to climate change.
States, regions and cities are where the rubber hits the road in terms of practical action to reduce greenhouse gas emissions. The UN Development Program estimates that 50 per cent to 80 per cent of the emissions cuts needed to keep climate change below 2C will need to be delivered at state, regional and city levels.”
http://www.theaustralian.com.au/news/opinion/think-globally-act-locally-states-already-are/story-e6frg6zo-1225966638174
Maurice Strong has been busy at the global local level, where the easiest access to human data concentration is – our cities. http://www.iclei.org/
Along with the carbon reducing projects http://www.iclei.org/index.php?id=global-themes you’ll probably be walking to your local liquor outlet, if there is an outlet left after calculations on p/head population, unless you can afford a taxi or home brew kit http://www.iclei.org/index.php?id=11037
The NGOs support this also -they have put a price on alcohol-related harm with this new approach to [urban planning] policy http://www.aerf.com.au/Harm_to_Others_Full_Report_with-errata.pdf
(properties:- 1.7megs, titled 2003) Sourced from reference 7, Medical Journal of Aus- http://www.mja.com.au/public/issues/193_10_151110/chi10741_fm.html
It seems that the government funding and the re-education programs over the past 20 years haven’t worked. Time for another approach?
Just like the CFC hoax (DuPont patents to control Freon had run out;not a threat to ozone) are we gonna just let them get away with this too?! & as with the running pattern of this eco madness, they’ll replace the anaesthetics with more toxic & expensive stuff, so they have to restrict numbers of operations to bear minimum…doh! ‘fraid little Jimmy died. Ah, well …one less mouth to feed. Oh, i spose that means the hospital/council will get more funding then!
Joel Heinrich says:
December 5, 2010 at 4:11 am
Peak wavelength at ~17.5 µm? I suppose it was just another “scientist” who doesn’t know that a fancy (modelling, graphics, math, …) computer program can’t replace thinking.
Check the units.
“”””” Phil. says:
December 7, 2010 at 7:18 am
Joel Heinrich says:
December 5, 2010 at 4:11 am
Peak wavelength at ~17.5 µm? I suppose it was just another “scientist” who doesn’t know that a fancy (modelling, graphics, math, …) computer program can’t replace thinking.
Check the units. “””””
Say Phil,
I guess I should have more quickly twigged to the fact that their spectral plot was per wave number increment rather than than per wavelength increment; hence the final (m) on top of the units.
So question ?? Which of the two plots is really the most realistic; the per wave number or per wavelength, in terms of grasping the energy consequences . Something suggests that since E = hbar.nu that the wave number scale is actually more pictorially descriptive of the real situation. You opinion ??