Frits Byron Soepyan
January 2025
Abstract:
Various educational and medical institutions, as well as policymakers, have expressed concerns regarding the use of metered-dose inhalers to prevent or treat shortness of breath associated with asthma and chronic obstructive pulmonary disease (COPD), as these inhalers use hydrofluorocarbons (HFCs), which are greenhouse gases, as propellants. In response, “environmentally friendly” alternatives to metered-dose inhalers have been proposed for patients with asthma.
To determine if prescribing these alternatives is necessary, we used the concentration and radiative forcing of the HFCs that are used as propellants (HFC-134a and HFC-227ea) in current inhalers to predict the temperature rise caused by the continued emissions of these HFCs into the atmosphere. Based on our estimates, the continued emissions of these HFCs would cause a combined temperature increase of about 0.0132 °C in 50 years and of about 0.0264 °C in 100 years. Such a rise in temperature is negligible and cannot be measured or felt.
Therefore, curbing the emissions of HFCs from inhalers is unnecessary and would have minimal effect on the climate. Given this conclusion, the selection of inhalers to prescribe to patients with asthma or COPD should be based on the health, safety and needs of the patients, rather than on a purported environmental benefit.
Read the entire publication here.
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How many inhaler puffs would equate to one 3000MW coal plant
Or one lithium battery load leveling battery farm fire.
Fun – we should measure all big yucky things in “equivalent lithium battery load leveling battery farm fires” instead of “Hiroshima bombs”.
A googolplex?
“Based on our estimates, the continued emissions of these HFCs would cause a combined temperature increase of about 0.0132 °C in 50 years and of about 0.0264 °C in 100 years.” (My emphasis – dd)
Dear CO2 Coalition, you are doing great work to expose the senseless imposition of restrictions on beneficial and harmless compounds.
But please reconsider how you are going about this. By conceding the “radiative forcing” of a substance that adds no energy to the land + ocean + atmosphere system, you are granting the opponent’s core claim. Stop doing that.
Without disputing the infrared absorption and emission properties of these propellants, it is already plain to see that none of the so-called “GHGs” – CO2, CH4, N2O, etc. are capable of causing energy absorbed from sunshine to accumulate down here as sensible heat gain as concentrations rise. No one can isolate the theoretical radiative effect to reliably confirm a climate system result in terms of temperature or any other metric.
For that matter, there never has been a good scientific reason to expect ANY detectable “warming” down here from incremental CO2, CH4, N2O, and other similar radiatively active gases. How so? The general circulation of the atmosphere involves a continuously varying conversion of energy in both directions between [internal energy + potential energy] and [kinetic energy]. The modelers know this. It completely overwhelms any tendency toward the claimed “warming” at the surface from incremental concentrations in the atmosphere. This very short time-lapse video of plots uses the hourly “vertical integral of energy conversion” from the ERA5 reanalysis to make this point. Please read the text description for the full explanation with references.
https://youtu.be/hDurP-4gVrY
Thank you for listening.
Let’s all stop conceding the “radiative forcing” framing, which has been unsound all along.
For there to be any radiative forcing, it has to alter the gravity based pressure/temperature gradient.
Net radiative transfer depends on temperature difference..
CO2 does not and can not alter the temperature gradient.
Only H2O does that.
It always amazes me what trivial contributors come under scrutiny. You would think someone would have gotten around to examining the impacts of Asian rice farming by now.
The concentration of CH4 in air is 1.936 ppmv (cf., NOAA’s Global Monitoring Lab.) The reason for the low concentration of CH4 in air is due to the initiation of its combustion by discharges of lightning. Everyday there are many millions of lightning discharges, especially in the tropics (cf., Wikipedia).
CH4 is readily oxidized by ozone which is generated by discharges of lightning.
CH4 is slightly soluble in cold water. One liter of ice-cold water can contain up to
35 mls of CH4. That is not very much, but the cold polar oceans are quite large.
In the cold water CH4 slowly diffuses to the ocean floor. In the cold water and under high pressure CH4 forms a solid clathrate known as methane ice, which is stable indefinitely. There vast deposit of methane ice on the floors of the polar oceans.
We really do not have to worry about CH4.
Is GC’s rice farming example a CH4 issue?
supposedly, from some viewpoints
Um, not just CH4. Water vapor is the single largest contributor. Again, going for the trivial contributor and ignoring the elephant in the room.
“One liter of ice-cold water can contain up to 35 mls of CH4. That is not very much,”
It’s even less if you get the maths right. I’m not trying to give you too much of a hard time, but when I looked at that 35mL/Liter …. naaaah, that would be a hell of a lot and not possible for a pretty hydrophobic molecule. Wikipedia has the solubility at 22.7 milligrams/liter, so 1,000-fold less, about 35 microliters per liter of water.
You got me intrigued, so I looked up the concentration in seawater:
The equilibrium concentration of methane in seawater is estimated to be between 3.7 and 3.9 nM
Its molecular weight is 16, so around 60 nanograms/Liter, and there are a lot of Liters of seawater globally. Don’t tell the climate crackpots, they’ll think there’s a need to ban the stuff, and loonies like McKibben and Miliband will need more money for places to hide it all.
I’ve seen claims about those, but not recently.
Are you frickin’ serious??
‘Gases from Asthma Inhalers Cause Negligible Warming’ How about no warming what-so-ever?
It seems to me that no one bothered to check on the expected atmospheric residence times of the HFC’s used. The calculations appear to assume that the HFC’s have a residence time much greater than 100 years.
Very nice, good news.
It’s just an excuse to add a hazardous materials charge to it!
…and as someone who has to use one from time to time, distressed breathing probably emits far more CO2 than the device itself….
Insanity beyond insanity, surely it can’t get any crazier than this can it?
Who weights this gas, and where are the scales? How do they weigh cow farts? Asking for a friend.
Indeed, and NOAA acknowledge this in Table 2 of their ‘Annual Greenhouse Gas Index’ (AGGI) at https://gml.noaa.gov/aggi/aggi.html
‘Radiative Forcing’ due to all CFCs, HCFCs and HFCs has increased by 0.036 W/m^2 since 1994. Over the same period, Methane RF has increased by 0.068 W/m^2 and Nitrous Oxide RF by 0.083 W/m^2, all calculated using “IPCC recommended equations” (Which do not account for Water Vapour, so the actual values will likely be significantly lower but it gives an idea of scale)
Why such significant effort is being expended to address these non-problems is a source of amazement. I can only think that there is a rump of fairly mediocre talent out there desperately searching for something useful to do.
Yep, it’s the modern day equivalent of digging ditches and filling them in.
The problem is: We’re having to argue with religious ideology. Whatever argument one brings
will be to no avail with these people.
Banning that propellant, and surgery anesthetics, and other such funny actions are indeed probably useless gestures. However, saying that some small average global temperature is too small to notice is disingenuous.
The global average is meaningless to any experience anywhere. There are a great many climates on the earth. This very small average might mean a +6C degree change in one climate and some -3C changes in other climates. The average calculation tells absolutely nothing about what people, animals, plants actually experience.
The problem I see is that someone actually thought inhalers cause or contribute to AGW. AGW clearly is a mental disease.
Good to know, however I believe there is an elephant in the room they didn’t consider when addressing this dumba$$ idea of banning inhaler propellants. If indeed one is the HFC 134a, this is still the primary refrigerant used in virtually all automotive air conditioning systems. And leaks from said systems would amount to several orders of magnitude more than from inhaler propellants. Average car or truck AC system charge is about a kilogram of 134a, compared to a few grams in an inhaler. The EPA considers a leak rate from car AC systems of 10% a year acceptable, so the millions of cars are in fact emitting potentially thousands of times more 134a into the air than do inhalers.
There is only one thing that this paper proves and that is the fact that our educational system in the West is in need of a MAJOR overhaul! Calling this research trivial is doing the word trivial a large injustice.
I just hope and pray that this was not funded by grant money. If so, the West is doomed.
On second thought perhaps this was a satire commenting on today’s green science. Well one can always hope.